Fic: Ain't Gonna Waste My Pleasures (Appalachian Murder Ballads, PG-13)

Title: Ain't Gonna Waste My Pleasures
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, non-graphic violence, references to murder
Summary: Cora and Polly and Willie, and how stories turn in to songs.

Cora was tough as nails and could shoot with a dead-eyed accuracy that put down whatever she aimed at. He’d seen her shoot a man with the same coolness she used to shoot squirrels, and she could handle any sort of gun, from a pistol to that ancient shotgun she kept behind the cabin’s door, long and narrow as Cora herself. It seemed easier to believe she might have acquaintance with ghosts than that she was some sort of secret poet.

Notes: Written for Yuletide 2013, for Lady Anne Boleyn. So much love and gratitude to my betas, threewalls and somebraveapollo! And thank you to Silver Queen for a very inspiring prompt.

This story is a crossover between the songs "Pretty Polly" and "Darling Cora" (though you can also read it without canon knowledge!). As with all folk songs, there are approximately a million versions of each. Here are some of my favorites, if you'd like a soundtrack for this story:
Pretty Polly: Ralph Stanley & Patty Loveless | Bert Jansch | Hillbilly Gypsies
Darling Cora: Appaloosas | The Church Sisters | Ed Hicks and Aaron Jonah Lewis

4401 words. Also available on AO3



( Ain't Gonna Waste My Pleasures )

Fandom Snowflake: Day One

I've decided to participate in The Fandom Snowflake Challenge, a posting challenge for the first 15 days of January. Come and join! I'm already a day behind, so you can be as well.

Day One

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator.

I've seen a lot of discussion over the last few days regarding drabbles (of the 'exactly 100 words' sort), and whether they're a worthwhile form of story. I love drabbles and have written quite a lot of them, and think a well-done drabble is just as hard to write and fun to read as any other sort of story. So here are some of my favorite drabbles by myself:

Every Happy Family - Yami no Matsuei, Hisoka backstory gen, G.
Dusk: LJ | AO3. Saiyuki, Goku+Sanzo, G. (Warning for major character death)
Blossom to Blossom: LJ | AO3. Swordspoint, Richard/Alec, PG-13. (Sort of cheating, since this is a set of five drabbles rather than a solitary drabble, but I figure it still counts.)

On the totally other hand, how about a rec for the longest thing I've ever written?
Nothing Better or More Delightful: LJ | Ao3. Benjamin January mysteries, Ben/Rose/Hannibal, NC-17. Ben and Rose have rescued Hannibal from unjust accusations and an untimely death, but they're not sure what to do next. The trip back from Mexico is a chance to figure out where everyone belongs. (Set in the aftermath of Days of the Dead.)
I only wrote this a little over a month ago, but I am still excessively fond of it, and not just because it's so (to me) impressively long! To other people 14k is probably not very much, but I felt very accomplished. I may also write a sequel to someday (next year's polybigbang?) since the plot I originally outlined was barely begun in what I ended up writing.

And finally a rec for something entirely different:
Music for Benjamin January. Yes, it is a fanmix! I really like to make fanmixes, but I spend far more time endlessly fidgeting with the 'perfect' song-call and the 'perfect' order to put them in than I do actually posting them. (Case in point: my nowhere-near-finished Ben/Rose/Hannibal threesome fanmix or my Ben January modern AU French rap mix, which is being delayed by the fact that I only know one French rapper.) But! This one I actually did finish, and which I like, even if I disappointed that I never could find a version of 'Fur Elise' performed by a violin, and had to go with piano.