Between the good and bad, that's where you'll find me, Reaching for Heaven

The thought crossed my mind: what does one call a group of death gods? I used the phrase "bevy of shinigami" in an earlier entry, and it started to bug me what the proper term would be? (Yes, I obsess over things like this: it's more interesting than obsessing over bills or my alleged lack of a "love life", which I actually have, it's just not a romantic one). The phrase "a scything of reapers" came to mind, but this would likely apply best to western pyschopomps (even though the Japanese pop-culture image of the shinigami is actually borrowed from the western notion of "the Grim Reaper": the word "shinigami" apparently wasn't coined until sometime in the Meiji period). I'm still stuck as to what to call a bunch of their eastern cousins.

Another thing occurred to me, something that has popped up in a couple series featuring pyschopomps: someone mind-controlling a psychopomp. It happened in an episode of Supernatural, where Tessa the Reaper was briefly possessed, and it happens in an episode of Bleach, when one of the Bounts mind-controls one little Soul Reaper. This bugs me to no end: if something is the personification of that cosmic dynamic which indicates the cessation of life or at least a dramatic and unalterable change in how one's existence is experienced, doesn't that mean they're considerably more powerful and thus outside of being controlled by something lesser? I can go with a pyschopomp being physically restrained (the Aleister Crowley-wannabe in the first volume of the Sandman Comics tries to pull this off, and it happens a few times in Yami no Matsuei), but someone hijacking the volition of a psychopomp is likely worse than having a terrorist get their hands on a nuclear missile silo. I mean, think about that for a moment: you have a creature that can end life (however one defines that ending); I would think there is some cosmic law that prevents this from happening, in case someone goes completely Omnicidal. If you think of life in the eastern sense, ie. that everything has a spark of life in it, from humans down to the tiniest stones, can you imagine the devastation that could be caused? We're not just talking about end of the world as we know it, it could be the heat death of the universe if you had someone angry enough and destructive enough controlling said psychopomp(s). It also defines God-Moding. Which we know I despise. I guess what I'm saying is, my Willing Suspension of Disbelief stops at the idea of a mind-controlled psychopomp, since there's some major teleological High Octane Nightmare Fuel involved.

Also managed to scribble down the last of the centi_50 fics, though none of those will go live until after I've finished the 12 Fanfic Roses challenge. So expect a torrent of those once I finish showering you with roses (though if I don't get cracking with those, you're likely to see me dump the basket upside down over your heads, which may not be good for the Friends list).

Hm. Now I'm curious: there's two YnM crossovers which I wonder if they've been done. One with The Sandman Comics specifically the Death comics (since Death would probably glom on Hisoka and/or Tsuzuki big time: there's a creepy one featuring the Corinthian and his possible involvement with Muraki's glass eye) and one with "Dead Like Me" (though if George and Hisoka got together, they'd likely annoy the crap out of each other, since they're both snarky and a bit diffident; I imagine Mason and Tsuzuki would be the best of buddies, but I wonder how Rube and Tatsumi would get along since they're both rather meticulous). Off to go a-searching!!

Blustery cold day today, which meant having to bundle up good -- and endure a parade of people asking me if I was cold and watching their bewilderment when I told them it wasn't really bugging me.

Still trying to figure out what's up with LoudTwitter and it's a bit worrisome, though of course you can follow my Tweets at: https://twitter.com/MatrixRefugee.

Back to watching Bleach, with more "Hey, It's That Voice" moments: Batou's VA from GitS:AC as both a Soul Reaper and a Bount. Also Orihime sounds like a slightly less helium-esque (and therefore less hard on me sensitive ears) version of Mikuru in "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya". Unfortunately the credits have been chopped out of the streaming vids I'm watching, but I think that's Crispin Freeman as the leader of the Bounts, which prompted me to say, "Does Crispin Freeman always voice vampire-like critters??" And I'm starting to think I've heard Uryuu's VA somewhere else, but I can't place it. I'm rather fond of Uryuu, maybe because he pasted my least favorite character, though it took a Heroic BSOD to accomplish it, maybe because he seems to get a lot of unwarranted hatred and part of me wants to tip the balance in the poor Quincey's favor. It's hard for me to hate a guy who can *sew by hand* and also is (or was) a crack shot with a bow and arrow.

Also drafted good-sized chunks of several longer YnM fics: I seem to have taken on another YnM fic archetype that requires delicate execution and that's the "redeeming Muraki" idea. Yeah. While I believe *anyone* can be redeemed if they let go of what they've done wrong and admit to their guilt and try to do right, it's a hard sell with this guy because he's so perverse and he clearly enjoys being perverse (though I don't doubt he has his moments when he can't meet his own gaze in a mirror, knowing he's looking at a total monster...). But it dawned on me that there's one thing that might cause him to at least scale back some of his wrong-doing, especially if someone really held his heels over the fire, and so I decided to run with it. I can't say more, but it does tie in with the "He Who Hunts Monsters" plot I've been toying with as well, or at least one take on it. I have a much, much darker angle on it, but I cannot bear to write it *that* way, since the darker rendering involves one character having to decide which he values more: preserving the new family and the new world he's found, or destroying the man who destroyed the world he'd lost, and how he finds that he can't have it both ways.

I also decided to remix "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and, ah, extend it past the fade to black. Yes, that version will be going on the InsaneJournal, though it's nowhere near finished, since like Neil Gaiman writing "Tastings", I keep getting embarrassed with it and putting it aside. It'll be finished when I stop being embarrassed with it.