dira | CryoBurn! Spoilerrific!

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Also, welp. I guess I better get on with writing that Aral/Jole fic. I SAY IT'S CANON FOR REALS NOW. HE WAS SERVING ON SERGYAR. AND A PALLBEARER. AND FOLLOWED ARAL TO SERGYAR. Oh man I want to write Jole's Aftermaths drabble but I don't know if I actually could. (Cordelia didn't find Aral. Who did?)

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Also also, Vorlynkin is like thirty seconds away from buying Jin and Mina their own ponies, isn't he? I really rather enjoyed Cryoburn as a Miles adventure, and was delighted by Ekaterin's message from home, which was slightly more news from the home front than I expected knowing it was Miles and Roic off on a planet we never saw before. Lizzie! Taurie! HELLION! Sasha-Xander-Lexie-A.A.-Alex! (;____;) And I was UNSPEAKABLY DELIGHTED to have Mark and Kareen show up, that was gorgeous and awesome and fantastic, watching the boys each working their angle, having come as far as they have toward being brothers and a species of friends. Mark! You're getting there!

And I did not see the ending coming at all despite what was in retrospect considerable foreshadowing--I mean, I got it when they spotted Vorventa, but not before then--because I am slow like that. But I think I was half-expecting it, at the same time--I've been discussing and considering Aral's Death as an inevitable plot event in these books since, uh, probably since Mirror Dance? So very nearly as long as I've been reading them; since I was thirteen or so. And I think Cordelia's drabble is right: there were worse fates possible for him. This one's only natural, in the end; I mean, that's the whole thesis of the book, really. But oh, Aral. And oh, oh, baby Lord Vorkosigan. Aral, now? (At least he had his mama to tell him, and not some random servant shaking him awake in the night. Poor Ekaterin.) Oh, everyone.

And I can go read Shards any time I like and Aral is always not only alive but one of the fittest men in his command.

Over forty.

&Aral;

Man, I need to write the story where he meets Eleven, too.

Also, TAURA. Even more inevitable than Aral, but. OH TAURA. OH ROIC, at her bedside, begging her to take a chance on cryofreezing. And now cautiously courting Miss Pym. And. Oh. EVERYONE. Quick and dead alike.

Also, VividCon was awesome, and I am extra extremely glad this year that I took the Monday recovery day off of work. I needed it even without calculating in Cryoburn.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh man, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to read this book. Aral&Cordelia are my favorites. I just reread Shards and Barrayar earlier this week, and I think they're my ultimate canon OTP. *clings to them*

It's--I don't know whether this makes it better or worse for you, but 99.9% of the book is Not About That. It's a really good fun interesting Miles book, right up until the end. And then, :(.

*clings to Aral and Cordelia also*

*hides eyes from spoilers*

Sounds like you had a better 2:30 in the morning than I did. *g*

I had a pretty excellent 2:30 in the morning, tbh. *g*

I hope both your sleep pattern and mine are better tonight...

(Having just finished Cryoburn, I'm now going back and reading everyone else's posts on the topic.)

Aral/Jole fic might be the unicorn chaser I need right now. I'm seriously weepy.

*offers Kleenex*

I wanted to write SO MUCH Aral/Jole before this and now I need to write SO MUCH MORE.

...Which is why last night I found myself writing Bourne Identity fic, obviously. I guess I'm still processing? *g*

... yeah, I definitely re-read "As You Tap on Your Glass" last night. It helped.

I totally support Bourne Identity fic as well, although I am selfishly hopeful that you will start processing with more Aral/Jole...

So I just gave in and read the eARC after stumbling across spoilers, and after reading the last drabble I immediately thought, "Didn't

dira post about this a while ago?" All I really have to add is that I agree with everything you said. I really enjoyed the story itself, because it was a lot of fun, especially as it all started to spiral out of control as Mile kept stumbling across more and more mysteries and, being Miles, was completely incapable of just ignoring them. He's gotten rather considerate in his old age when it comes to actually slowing down to explain his thoughts. I'm sure Ivan must approve. I loved the little glimpse of the kids, too. Ponies for everyone, including Jin and Mina! Possible monogrammed butterbugs, too. (And now the name issue is settled for A.A./Sasha/Alex/Xander/Lexie/Lord Vorkosigan...)

I've been thinking about Aral's death since "Diplomatic Immunity", because there was a line in it early on how Miles always worried that he'd be off on an assignment and get a message starting "Count Vorkosigan," (in fact, it might have even been word-for-word for what happened in Cryoburn), and I was honestly a bit surprised it didn't happen there. Then as soon as Mark showed up and started talking about life extensions and how they'd have to trick Aral into taking it by making it sound dodgy, I was worried that he'd die this time. Only he did. ;_;

At least he seems to have gone peacefully, and like Cordelia said, there are worst ways - like poor Dubauer, who she still remembers forty-odd years later, because if she didn't who would? At least in my head she still has Jole, in whatever platonic or romantic way they're linked. I'd be begging you to write it, except there's fifteen or twenty years of history you'd need to figure out first.

tl,dr: OH ARAL. OH TAURA. OH ROIC (that little gi- m'lord indeed.)

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And, all that said--I do actually have the fic in question plotted out. But (as I think you've seen) I do actually have to start eighteen years before and work my way up to it, so it may be a while. *g*

I enjoyed it as a Miles adventure, though Kibou was sketched so broadly, with nothing like the worldbuilding that went into Cetaganda or Jackson's Whole or really anywhere else we've been, that it really felt like Lois's heart wasn't in it.

Though Miles himself didn't feel nearly as by-the-numbers as he did to me in Diplomatic Immunity, so I'm hopeful that she might have another Miles book in her, and that this was just the only way she could bring herself to write the ending, by gathering up a whole book's worth of forward momentum.

Yeah, I think a lot of this book was about needing to write Aral's death and that being the only way she could--my assumption was that that would be the last Miles book, because she'd felt the need to do it somehow and that was it, but maybe now that this is out of the way there could be all the After books....

Or even just Ivan: His Book. I will take that.

And now that I've got the hardcover in hand, I want to reread CryoBurn when it's not, you know, all in one night and rushing to the end to find out the dreaded eventuality. (I got spoiled in a really weird way, let me just say: someone mentioned in a cut tag that there was new canon about Jole, which convinced me that there had to be something about Aral, which made me frantic to find out what and whether I was, somehow, jossed.)

I just finished this morning on the plane, and in a weird way, I am so excited about the way Aral's death gets handled. Because Miles mourning him is about him mourning Miles, all the times he's been dead.

The rest of the book is pretty cool. Jin is going to get a safe place to live, and imprint on Raven liek woa. Kibou is going to have a vast national holiday of mourning where they come to terms with the fact that mortality is still a part of their lives, even if they delay it sometimes. People are going to go say goodbye to their great-grandparents and realize that they've already done the missing and what they are losing is false hope, and is that really anything to base an economy on? (I'm not sure Tenbury plans on freezing himself at all, really. He might be an unbeliever.) And the substitution of hope for faith! So interesting.

It's now been long enough that I need to reread to fix the actual story in my mind; it's sort of eclipsed in my mind by the epilogue. But I did love the snapshot/drabble format of the Aftermaths.

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGH. Just read it, knew you would have a post somewhere and I could SHARE MY WOE. :(

*hug*

*hugs back lots*

And I did not see the ending coming at all despite what was in retrospect considerable foreshadowing

Just read Cryoburn after marathoning the series again, and what's interesting (and badass, in a writerly way) is that the closing line was foreshadowed in the beginning of Diplomatic Immunity, when Miles mentions dreading the day a courier greets him as Count Vorkosigan. *cries*

Am off to read your epilogue as additional closure, and then the threesome epic as palliative....

*offers handkerchief*

I have to say all the writing I'm doing is certainly a comfort for me. I'm glad if it helps you, too.

CryoBurn! Spoilerrific!

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