Off the prompt "cuddles."

niqaeli asked if I was ever planning to write cheerful Vorkosigan fic. Signs point to: No. Shows what I know!

Title: Gestures and Words Unspoken
Author: jmtorres
Length: ~2,000 words
Rating: not kid-safe
Warnings: Voyeurism. Exhibitionism. Not always concurrent. Not the generation you're probably expecting.
Summary: Illyan is Gregor's keeper.
AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/28062

( Read more... )

"Of the five men with a better right by blood and law to the Imperium of Barrayar than mine, your name heads the list." (Ezar Vorbarra to Aral Vorkosigan, at the end of Shards.)

Aral, Padma, and who else? Arguably you could put Gregor in the list somewhere, Gregor is directly descended from Dorca by his mother (Yuri's sister) while Ezar was Dorca's nephew. Gregor drops below Aral and Padma in precedence under this logic if you allow that having descended from Dorca's son Xav rather than Dorca's daughter puts Aral and Padma ahead. Although I'm fairly certain that rather implies that a younger son beats an elder daughter purely by being male, and I'm not sure how that fits with salic descent criteria. Unless perhaps Aral and Padma being a generation closer to Dorca than Gregor fills the gap?

But so: Aral, Padma, Gregor. And who, pray tell, are the other two men alive at the end of Shards of Honor with a better claim to the crown than Ezar, but no better than Aral's? Not Xav; I'm fairly certain he's dead here and even if he were alive, he'd head the list over Aral certainly. niqaeli and I have posited that Kareen's a Vorbarra cousin--but also that all her male relatives (other than her son) are dead, or she would have had someone to guard her against Vordarian.

Hmm. Later on there is mention of Vortaine, Ivan's elderly heir and so perhaps in theory Padma's heir at this point in the timeline? I wonder how he fits into the geneaology. He must be rather distantly related, a fourth cousin x times removed of Ivan's (and Miles's?) at the nearest, I'd think: not child of one of Xav's daughters, or he'd be as close to Aral as Padma; not descended from a spare sib one generation back, there were only three Imperial sibs there, and they're all accounted for unless you want to argue Yuri's sister was married to a Vortaine before she wed Ezar, re the consolidation of power--which would put our mysterious Vortaine too high in the chain of inheritance. No, I think his closest possible connection would be if he were descended from one of Dorca's sibs. Which arguably might put him on this list in the right place, if the Dorca sib he's child or grandchild of is the elder of the Dorca sib Ezar's the child of.

Aral, Padma, Gregor, Vortaine. Considering how far removed Vortaine is, I suspect I shall never figure out the fifth. Unless it's not a whole separate line to work out and Vortaine has a younger brother. Heh.

I would like you all to know that Gregor is being a hell-child. Child may be the wrong term, he's twenty-ish. Yet I can't help feeling he is behaving rather horribly immaturely. There's the using people, the lying by omission, the incredible rationalization of dubious consent issues (though heaven knows Illyan's guilty of backing him up on that one), and the cake-topper, the firm belief that no wrong is greater than his wrong and no angst is deeper than his angst.

Honestly, Gregor, all things considered you're a relatively harmless pervert. Fantastically creepy, but not in your father's league at all, so please stop being an emo bastard on that score? Illyan's right: you have picked a good keeper, no one's going to let you go there, even if you had shown any inclination to, which you haven't.

*mutters* Muses.

Vid: The Long Spear
Vidders: MANY--Please credit to "jmtorres, niqaeli, et al", not JUST to jmtorres. This was NOT a solo vid
Music: The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel, with additional material
Fandom: Star Trek and... Star Trek. Yes.
LINK (right-click or ctrl-click to download and save): http://houseoftorres.dreamhosters.com/vids/jmtniqetal-startreks-longspear.mp4 (60MB) (link updated 16 May 2020)

I promised since, oh, about the second time I saw the movie that this vid would say everything I wanted said and that if it didn't I would cry and hang up my hat as a vidder because clearly I would be no good at communicating in the medium.

So I will limit my remarks here and let the vid do most of the talking. I really only want to say three things:

1. An expansion of the credits:
jmtorres and niqaeli were the primary vidders in the sense of putting material on the timeline.

traykor, echan, and grey_bard did lots and lots additional clipping above and beyond what jmtorres and niqaeli managed.

grey_bard also recorded the vocal track for the last verse specifically for this project. The other women whose singing I sampled for this vid are Joni Mitchell and Lorenna McKennit.

killabeez and slasher69 are two vidders to whose work we paid homage. Those vids were: Killa's Dante's Prayer, because Killa is a seminal Trek vidder of the modern era (Dante's Prayer has been cited as "Hey, you guys! We can use those computers things for vidding!"), and Kandy Fong's Both Sides Now, which is, so far as I know, the earliest vid of which we have visual record (see this OTW journal article for more on the history of vidding).

The following fangirls took pictures of themselves in Vulcan salute for me to use at the end of the vid: ysobel, lierdumoa, settiai, lferion, azurelunatic, revolutionaryjo, gchick, zarhooie, missingwatch.

elfling made the awesome costumes we wore to Club Vivid.

I would also like to give a special nod to nshoe, who, while not one of our women's voices in the traditional sense, did help out with Memory Alpha abuse for clipping and making one of my hard drives live again. His wife, niqaeli, also notes that he was very patient with the crazy women in the house.

2. I did, briefly, want to explain the title, because I used a metaphor that I thought was not uncommon, but google entirely disagrees. So you may never have heard it before unless you read all the same stuff I do. papersky writes about her spearpoint theory; the example she was using it on when I appropriated it into my personal vocabulary was the Vorkosigan novels, how the later novels like Brothers in Arms and Memory are that sharp point on the long spear, they have an emotional impact because of the history of the other novels they carry. I consider the Star Trek Reboot movie to be the sharp point. Since I'm trying not to overexplain the vid, I'll leave the rest of the metaphor unspoken.

3. My hat is made of tin.

I will now take questions from the audience.

(Holy cow, it's harder to hear people cry than to hear them laugh.)

It's been a while since I've done a writing prompt request post and even longer since I've successfully written much from one, but hey, let's break champagne over the bow of the good ship Dreamwidth! And if you have wandered over from another service and made the effort of signing in with openID to comment with a prompt, I will make a special effort to fill your request.

Fandoms I have paid attention to lately:

• Chuck (I am presently caught up on Chuck, though I may not be immediately so tomorrow)


• Highlander (Mostly Methos at the moment, though some Amanda, but I have seen the whole series + Raven + ... some of the movies, and can do a little reserch if necessary)


• Dollhouse (would prefer not to write about Ballard)


• Merlin (while I keep reading fic, it's been about four months since I've watched the show, fair warning)


• Boston Legal (a bit rusty, it's been a few months since I watched any I am not sure I could write anyone but Denny and Alan and maybe Shirley though)


• Tin Man (likewise rusty)


• Vorkosigan (probably, I can actually handle Vorkosigan canon? More hilariously I could give you this fusion universe niqaeli and I have wherein folks from Studio 60 and Numb3rs and possibly one or two other places work for ImpSec.)


• Howling (yes, Howling but not SG1. I know, I'm brilliant)


• XFP (but only if you know enough to know what you're asking for *G*)

The more specific you are in your prompt, the more likely I am to be able to fulfill it. Actually, I deal with restrictive styles very well and may be defaulting to "5 things that never x" if I am having a hard time with a prompt in general, so if you want to use the 5 things prompt from the get-go, that's cool too.

So! *rubs hands together* Who wants fic?

ETA: If you love me you'll put a title on your comment so gmail starts a new thread for me.