Dira Sudis

Sorry, bunny. No room at the inn.

2012-02-03T20:15:33Z

So a few weeks ago I read this book about FDR and the New Deal - Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America* - which was a really interesting and pretty much what it says on the tin. It's a profile of FDR's closest advisors, including both members of the "bedside cabinet" and the actual official cabinet, and a look at all the incredible things they got done in the first three months of FDR's presidency in terms of turning the country around.

It left me wanting a more ground-level view, something about the actual people who actually were helped by alphabet soup agencies and programs, people who went from struggling to survive to making a living wage because FDR hustled a program through Congress in three days. So now I'm reading Devil's Lake, Wisconsin, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, about a specific local-ish camp where the CCC did a lot of work, and about the young men who worked there.

...So, you know. Obviously I am reading along through the explanation of the organizational structure of the camp and automatically mentally assigning everybody's roles for the Civilian Conservation Corps GK AU. Encino Man = the camp's military commander. Nate = the junior officer assisting him. Brad, Pappy, Lovell = enrollee leaders, who are so much like sergeants that they GET TO WEAR CHEVRONS ON THEIR CCC DRESS UNIFORMS. Doc is the enrollee orderly who does first aid and watches grumpily over you if you get sick enough not to work; the battalion surgeon guy is the actual contract doctor, away in town but reachable for emergencies.

And then, you see, each camp had an educational advisor, the guy who offers classes and tries to make sure all the enrollees have at least learned to read and write by the time they leave the CCC. He's the only non-military grownup at the camp, and according to the book this made him a "frequent confidant" of the enrollees, by which I assume they mean "the safest person to tell if you have a crush on your bunkmate/enrollee leader/Army lieutenant who is basically running the place because the Captain is totally useless/etc." So clearly: Evan.

And they all build a state park together, and then a few years later they meet up again and go fight Nazis! The end!

*That ACTUALLY IS why America is the way it is today!

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WIP meme!

2012-01-30T14:45:44Z

(Dreamwidth only: Random icon is random and also a reminder from the universe that I need to get started on my Lupercalia story. Speaking of WIPs.)

WIP Meme! Because, let's face it, I am constitutionally incapable of letting this one go by without participating.

From misspamela: Post a random sentence (or three whole paragraphs) from every WIP you're currently working on, even if it's very short. Then invite people to ask questions about your WIP. With any luck, you'll get talking about writing, and the motivation to take that WIP one step closer to completion will appear as if by magic!

Naturally I am going for the "three whole paragraphs" option. Feel free to ask questions! Even if they are more of a comment than a question.

( Lewis kidfic! )

( The unfunny Aral/Jole story. )

( The GK story that did not appear in yesterday's poll, for reasons. )

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<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

2012-01-29T13:57:50Z

minutia_r has at long last filled the void that surely existed in all our hearts ever since reading that reference, waiting for someone to actually write Aral drunkenly declaiming revolution. In iambic pentameter.

Aral! Declaiming revolution! IN THE FORM OF A SONNET.

Declaiming Revolution

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Either I'll listen to you or I will become contrary in some definitive direction. I hope.

2012-01-28T23:41:50Z

Random icon is random, but probably also sort of suitable. Especially if the power in question is non-writing inertia.

View Poll: Tell me what to write, Internets.

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Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia!

2012-01-27T03:22:09Z

Because every fandom needs psychic wolves, you guys! :D :D :D Click the banner for details and rules-that-are-really-more-like-guidelines.

(petra credits me with helping to come up with this idea, but to be honest really all I remember saying is "dibs on Die Hard." That is my story and I'm sticking to it.)

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Generation Kill fic: All the Right Moves

2012-01-25T01:11:04Z

For riverlight, who asked for Nate/Brad at a party. Title from the Josh Ritter song "Right Moves" which is possibly even more apt for this pairing than I thought, now that I actually look at the lyrics.

Nate/Brad. Not very explicit. 650 words.
Brad knows guys who would play chess like this.

( All the Right Moves )

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Vorkosigan fic: Asked and Answered

2012-01-23T22:07:35Z

For philomytha, who asked for Aral/Simon. This is a somewhat sideways approach.

Memory. Aral/Simon. Not explicit. 550 words.
It was just the same as always.

( Asked and Answered )

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Vorkosigan Canadian Shack fic: Til Death Do Us Part

2012-01-19T13:33:58Z

Because canon het pairings and Canadian (well, probably South Barrayaran) shacks go together like... maple mead and bug butter.

Til Death Do Us Part (500 words) by Dira Sudis
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gregor Vorbarra/Laisa Toscane Vorbarra
Characters: Laisa Toscane Vorbarra, Gregor Vorbarra
Summary:

"Where are the Armsmen going to sleep?"

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Generation Kill zombie fic: The Moffatt Twp Bridge

2012-01-19T03:05:49Z

keerawa asked for Generation Kill zombie apocalypse AU, so I decided to plunk the guys down in my favorite zombie apocalypse: Mira Grant's Newsflesh Trilogy.

Which means they're all bloggers. :D

Gen. 565 words.
Nate was the editor in charge of twenty-two Recon bloggers: Bravo's Channel Two (Observe Everything. Admire Nothing.).

( The Moffatt Twp Bridge )

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Lewis/Oxford Time Travel Fic: Alibi

2012-01-18T02:20:45Z

So brewsternorth posted a request for a Lewis crossed over with Connie Willis's Oxford Time Travel, over at the prompt meme on lewis_hathaway.

I think the only surprising part of what happened next is that I managed to get the resulting story in (just, literally, within a few characters after I had eliminated all double-spaces after periods) under the Dreamwidth comment size limit. I think you can probably read this knowing only one half of the source; feel free to ask questions if you try it and then have no idea what just happened. *g*

Many thanks to iulia and missmollyetc for cheering this along.

Gen, probably. James Hathaway, Robbie Lewis, Ned Henry, Verity Kindle, Kivrin Engle. 2700 words.
"This is worse than maths, Sergeant," Lewis said darkly. "This is history."

Alibi

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Vorkosigan fic: Timely

2012-01-17T13:24:24Z

Do you know, I think this is the first time I've ever written OMC/OMC?

ellen_fremedon requested Hector and Alyosha, so here they are. Falls into the continuity of The World That You Need, but I suppose if you want to read OMC/OMC fic set about halfway through Shards of Honor you don't need any further explanation for this.

During Shards of Honor, Hector/Alyosha. Not explicit. 500 words.
Whatever this is, it's so dire that Aleksi is approaching him openly.

( Timely )

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(Tiny) Generation Kill wolf-verse fic: Today We Have Naming

2012-01-16T19:14:14Z

Title once again from Naming of Parts, this story is for browngirl, who requested Ray and Navi's puppies. This follows on a couple of months after What to Do After Firing.

Many thanks to everyone who listened and helped brainstorm names!

January 2001. Ray, Navi, puppies. Gen. 425 words.
"Don't do this to your Ray-Ray, Navi."

( Today We Have Naming )

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Said it once (or more) before but it bears repeating now.

2012-01-15T03:57:32Z

Okay I am morally certain that it cannot actually have been over eight years since the last time I posted about Spy Game, the touching love story of CIA agents Brad Pitt and Robert Redford as directed by Tony Scott, but I cannot find a more recent post by going through my tags.

So: GUYS. SPY GAME IS A TOUCHING LOVE STORY BETWEEN BRAD PITT AND ROBERT REDFORD, PLEASE DISCUSS.

I would discuss but all I can do is make heart-hands at my TV. BOY SCOUTTTTTTTTT YOUR BOYFRIEND LOVVVVVVVES YOU HE JUST WANTS YOU TO BE SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFE.

Iulia: does not roll her eyes at all these days. ♥

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That meme everyone is doing

2012-01-12T02:45:00Z

Pick up the nearest book to you.
Turn to page 45.
The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

It was also the most diverse Cabinet in history.

...That sounds a bit promising.

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Personal Festivities

2012-01-11T14:31:47Z

1. So I have this extremely persistent bruise on my knee. And for a while now I have been saying that if the bruise got to be six months old, I would name it and buy it presents.

So! Today is six months, and I am naming the bruise on my knee Kermit, in honor of the car I wrecked in the accident that left me with a persistent bruise on my knee as my most significant injury. I suppose what today really is is the Feast of That Could Have Been So Much Worse; every time I am a little concerned or annoyed to still have a bruise six months after the car accident I remind myself exactly how ridiculously lightly I got off there.

Presents, which will arrive tomorrow because I didn't plan this as carefully as I clearly should have, are: a new paperback Four Quartets, to replace the one I used to carry with me everywhere all the time--and had with me after the accident--which disappeared at some point recently; all four Hilary Tamar books by Sarah Caudwell, which are entirely delightful; and The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells.

2. The Lewis fic I posted yesterday was my 300th to go up on the AO3 and my website (in, if I am counting right, fifty-three fandoms). Which I guess is what happens when you stick around for the better part of ten years in fandom and just keep writing and writing and writing.

I feel like there should be some celebration for this, too, so if anyone wants to leave prompts I will take a crack at writing 300-ish word ficlets. Only Lewis, Generation Kill, or Vorkosigan Saga, please. I clearly don't need any new fandoms on the tally. *g*

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Lewis fic: Being Between Two Lives

2012-01-10T13:18:39Z

21 days from fandom-inception to first fic--that beats Generation Kill by a full five days!

Many thanks to lamardeuse and missmollyetc for encouraging me and helping me sort out my ideas about Hathaway and generally aiding this fic into existence.

Title is from T. S. Eliot's "Little Gidding," because I have finally found a fandom that actively encourages that sort of thing.

Episode tag for "The Point of Vanishing". Hathaway/McKendrick, Lewis/Hathaway.
Not explicit. 2500 words.

"He's gone now," Fiona said softly. "Was that enough, do you think, or is he expecting me to keep you all night?"

( Being Between Two Lives )

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Vorkosigan Canadian Shack fic: Honeymoon Itinerary Item #47

2012-01-08T05:53:55Z

Canadian shacks! This is a thing we're doing again now!

(This exercise in brevity not at all brought to you by this fine bottle of sadly not Canadian beer. At all.)

Honeymoon Itinerary Item #47 (500 words) by Dira Sudis
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan/Miles Vorkosigan
Characters: Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan
Summary:

Everything had been lovely so far.

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Yuletide Reveal!

2012-01-01T19:44:39Z

Happy 2012! Neil Gaiman's New Years wishes made me go huh and I've been keeping them open in a tab to remember, so I commend them to everyone as well as linking them for my own reference.

I had two stories in this Yuletide.

My main assignment was Not the Last Unknown for jai, Oxford Time Travel. Not only did I get to write for someone I know (and someone whose fic tastes I could check on via mutual friends), but I got to write the Colin fic I've been wanting ever since I read All Clear, about ( All Clear spoiler )

I kind of gave up on being particularly sneaky about anonymity with this one, and in addition to naming it from the same song as the Kivrin story I wrote two years ago, I included the puppy I gave Kivrin in that story two years ago. *g*

I also wrote a treat, Waking for misslucyjane, Fairy Tales/Sleeping Beauty. To be honest, I'd already written it before Yuletide--it's missing scene original character gen for no particular version of Sleeping Beauty, addressing the question of what regular people did for a hundred years while their royal family slept in a thorn-covered palace. I decided that I wanted to give it to someone for Yuletide, and happily found it a recipient who enjoyed it. *g*

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2011 Fic Year in Review

2011-12-31T16:26:18Z

Scope note: Yuletide fics are included in the Year in Review for the year in which they were revealed, so this post includes my Yuletide 2010 stories, revealed on January 1, 2011. Yuletide 2011 fics will be in the 2012 Fic Year in Review.

This year I posted 22 stories in about 11 fandoms, totaling about 197,000 words.

( Fic List )

( Fic Review Meme )

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New fandom & fannish year in review.

2011-12-28T16:41:51Z

Sooooo on the 20th lamardeuse recced a lovely Lewis story called "The Hermit Crab" and, having read one or two of her squee posts about Lewis I read it. And then downloaded the first two episodes. And then drove to my parents' house, which meant A LOT OF HOURS IN THE CAR TO THINK, and then spent some time carving out alone-time at my parents' house by watching more Lewis and then MORE HOURS IN THE CAR and the upshot is: yeah, I'm probably going to write Lewis/Hathaway kidfic. It's all plotted out! It's very nearly totally finite in scope! I've mostly already done all the research I need to on UK paternity law thanks to watching Single Father last year!

Also Hathaway may actually have been invented just to make me happy, idk. He's a seminarian-turned-cop who responds to his manpain by despondently playing guitar alone in his flat. His crush on Lewis is visible from space as impeccably color-coordinated sparkles in the vicinity of Oxford. (OHAI OXFORD I MISS YOU.) This is the only adorable clip of them I can find on YouTube, but it is extremely adorable.

So, now that that's out of the way: here is a fandom-year-in-review meme that I swiped from... somebody.

Your main fandom of the year?
Stargate SG-1 dominated the first half of the year, overlapping slightly with Generation Kill which took over from then on. And the Vorkosigan Saga has been thrumming away patiently throughout.

Your favorite film you watched this year?
Captain America, I think, although I guess fannishly speaking X-Men: First Class wins out on actually having compelled me to write fic.

Also I feel I should make special mention of having finally for the first time, after about eleven years of active resistance, watched The Big Lebowski, which was pretty great and not at all the embarrassment-squick-farce-thing I was flinchingly anticipating. iulia was, as usual, right.

Your favorite book read this year?
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, and One Bullet Away, by Nathaniel Fick--weirdly pretty much equal amounts of physically hugging the book because I adored it so much for each of those. And Mira Grant's Deadline!!! And The Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan's unfortunate personality notwithstanding. And all of Fables. And The Princess Curse and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and The Persian Boy and Born to Run and and and.

Your favorite tv show of the year?
Castle is the only full-network-season show I've kept up with all year, and I continue to enjoy its goofy, good-natured approach to cop drama. Critically speaking, Game of Thrones and Southland were both brilliant (and heart-wrenching), and I eagerly anticipate the next seasons of each.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Generation Kill, which in my experience encompasses the chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter breakthrough of adding A Companion to Wolves to anything, but especially GK. Also, as of this week, Lewis. ♥

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
White Collar, where the show actually objectively seems to have changed, and Doctor Who, in which my view of the show changed.

Your fiction boyfriend of the year?
Brad Colbert.

Your fiction girlfriend of the year?
Sam Carter. (Now I really want Sam and Brad to hang out and blow shit up together. ♥)

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
I am pretty terrible at remembering these, but the one that leaps to mind is this moment in maybe the third episode of Lewis, when it has become moderately plot-relevant for Hathaway to reveal to Lewis that he plays in a group that does "world music plus jazz and medieval madrigals", and Hathaway says off-handedly that he will get Lewis some of the music to listen to. Lewis seems about as enthusiastic about this prospect as any sane person confronted with that description.

At the end of the episode, Hathaway pulls out an iPod and offers one earbud to Lewis, telling him it's that music he does, and Lewis gamely pops in the earbud while Hathaway pops in the other and they walk down the street in perfect sync, listening together. ♥__________♥

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?
CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I guess the actual Avengers movie is going to come out this summer so we can write movie-verse fic based on Steve and Tony actually interacting in movie canon? That's going to be neat.
But mostly, IVAN! HIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Presents!

2011-12-28T05:37:50Z

1) I am so totally overwhelmed by Yuletide this year that I haven't read anything since Christmas Day. I mean, also there was hectic family-holiday-ing and driving long distances and so on but also OH GOD SO MANY STORIES, SO MANY RECS, SO MUCH EVERYTHING. O.O

That said: I got a present! Just for me! And it is lovely! Carrying the Banner is Newsflesh Trilogy gen, George and Shaun taking a rather important field trip at age twelve. ♥

2) YAGKYAS! I totally failed to even post about yagkyas because it fell right on the day I was driving to Michigan and then there was a lot of family and holiday and etc. as above. So now the reveal is revealed, and I can thank cubicality for my freaky and awesome (and totally Rudy/Pappy in my heart) werewolf apocalypse story, 60 Days!

And I can also say that I wrote One to Grow On, possibly the only Doc Bryan/Michael Brunmeier story on the internet. TBH I had no idea who Brunmeier was when I got my assignment, so there was a bit of frantic running about, and searching of transcripts and rewatching and yelling at the TV every time Brunmeier had a line. I thank templemarker for beta, and everyone else I know for putting up with me flailing a lot about how to write Brunmeier. *g* I am really rather pleased with the story I wound up writing, and more importantly my recipient (hilariously, cubicality and I wrote for each other) liked it! Happy Yagkyasmas, C!

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Generation Kill Fic: Santa Is Here, Sleighbells Are Ringing

2011-12-13T20:04:56Z

This is the story that sprang into my head when I beheld my lovely santa-hatted Brad icon. So thank you howarethosenuts for bestowing the hat on Brad (and thank you dontcockblockme for the lovely original icon which cried out to be santa-hatted). Um. Which is not to imply that this story is in any way your fault.

Title is from Sufjan Stevens's Come On Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance.

Many thanks to riverlight for beta, and thanks to everyone else who audienced and listened while I was figuring out what to do with a story whose entire premise was "Brad wears a Santa hat for some reason and has sex with Nate."

Brad/Nate. Explicit. Ridiculous. 6200 words.
"I don't know why you're even fighting me on this. Santa is the most recon motherfucker who ever lived."

( Santa Is Here, Sleighbells Are Ringing )

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help a fangirl out!

2011-12-13T14:45:01Z

The short, short version: shoshannagold lost her job unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago, and faces being evicted next week if she can't come up with a couple of months' rent money, so several GK fangirls have organized a whip-round. 4_a_star has many posts from fanpeople offering fic and art in exchange for donations of various sizes! Please consider helping out if you can.

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Two different holiday media things.

2011-12-13T03:28:22Z

1) Have some Christmas type music!

I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas with a Dalek (I found this online somewhere--the file info says the artist is "The Go-Gos", but I don't actually know if that's accurate. Anyone know what the provenance of this is?)

And assorted awesome people singing in French:
Bruce Cockburn - Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes
Josh Groban - Petit Papa Noel
Annie Lennox - I'l Est Ne Le Divin Enfant

If you are looking for holiday music that is not in French or concerned with Daleks, feel free to ask! I have lots, and if I happen to have something you're looking for I'd love to hook you up. If you have some you'd like to share, please post a suitable sort of link!

2) So I have this eight-hour solo drive to my parents' house coming up in a couple of weeks (ETA: by which I mean a week from Wednesday. I ... really need to get on my Christmas shopping. o.O), and though I generally do not listen to audiobooks or podfic (I have the right combination of attention span and auditory processing fail to just ... zone out a lot) I have been stricken with the impulse to try again. Specifically, I'd like to listen to some audio non-fiction. (Yes! Yes I do know about the audiobook of One Bullet Away read by the author. I am just not ready for that particular... thing.)

Anyway, so--recs for engaging non-fiction audiobooks? I mostly read pop history and pop science, I think--not memoir or biography as much--but I'm a generally inquisitive person, so if you have something awesome to recommend I'd like to hear about it!

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Vorkosigan polyamory fic: Sings in Your Heart

2011-11-29T12:54:27Z

So last December I strayed away from working on my Aral/Cordelia & Aral/Jole series to just quickly write a couple of other (totally short and easy, ha ha) Vorkosigan stories. I posted the second of those stories two weeks ago. This isn't the next story I'd had outlined for the Aral/Jole series, just sort of a fluffy flashfic warmup for getting back to the characters.

Title (once again) from this random live cover of "Two-Headed Boy" by the Mountain Goats in which John Darnielle gets a lot of the words wrong.

Thanks to iulia for giving this one the green light.

Aral/Jole, Aral/Cordelia. Not explicit. Fluff. 3,000 words.
Part of The World That You Need. The Prime Minister doodles during meetings.

( Sings in Your Heart )

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