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

So yes, one of the many reasons I've been quieter than usual on here is due to working on the rough draft of my entry in vampirebigbang which is going to be a kind of extended back story/character memoir of Muraki. It's been insanely fun to write and I've been filling a wire-bound journal with it (said journal featuring a wintry Hokusai print on the cover. His Paleness approves this choice in a journal!)

( Cut for discussions of slash )

Lo and behold, a post that is not a signal boost or fanfic, though there will be discussions thereof.

Have been busy with errands or RP tagging or reading. I've ordered a number of books (used) from Amazon, including several of Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow's modern faery tale anthologies, Sarah Monette's "Doctrine of Labyrinth" novels (aka Felix and Mildmay's canon, to the carpe_ho_ras folk), and two very different biographies of Mervyn Peake (that's him in the icon, if you wondered who the gent up a tree was) and an anthology of several bits and bobs of poetry and short stories by him, entitled "Peake's Progress". This year being the centennial of his birth, I felt it was in good form to bone up on this fellow whose writings and art I admire.

I'm finding that Peake was every bit as eccentric and gleefully odd as some of the characters he created and it's been a delight discovering the man behind the Bricks, as tomboy_typist and I affectionately call his magnum opus (which is getting a canon update in June, since the long-lost "Titus Awake" is going to be released then: I have that on order as an early birthday present for meself). He's also someone I'm coming to admire with little disappointment. A lot is made of his tragic illness, but that mostly seems to be played up since he seems to have had very few of the unpleasant skeletons in the closet which some writers seem to have had. This can get irritating, since it seems a lot of critics let that overshadow the rest of his life, but I'm refreshed to find that his death was balanced by a life full of wonder and eccentric happenings (including nearly getting bitten by a camel when he was eleven, which incited him ever afterward, to make jokes about camels to lighten a mood) and an incredible level of productivity. This guy, it seemed, lived with pencil and paper in hand, sketching and doodling and drawing as much as he could. In many ways, he reminds me of myself...

Work today: I was anticipating having jury duty, as I'd gotten my summons back in January, but after calling in to find out if I was needed, I found that I wasn't. They were looking for Badge Numbers 1 through 91, and since I was Number 153 or 159, I didn't have to go in.

I've been poking at the Hurt/Comfort fics that I owe people, but I have to admit that while the fount hasn't dried up, I just haven't had the energy to post them. Add to this, I've got the deadline for love_bingo and I took up the help_japan auction as well. The fics will be written, it's just taking some time for it to happen. That and I got stuck coming up with ideas for my last two squares for love_bingo: for the life of me, I'm staring at two prompts, trying to match them to fandoms and characters, and those prompts would be:

"When I fall in love" and

"heavenly love".


Any thoughts? I'm open to any ideas now.

To say nothing of being worried for a penfriend of my mother's, in Japan, who lives in the Sendai region. We've been trying to locate her via the people finder that Google has set up, but she's come up as "unspecified", which could mean anything. This wouldn't be the first time that she's lost a penfriend in a natural disaster. She lost contact with a penfriend whose husband was a medical missionary working in Sri Lanka, during the tsunami there a few years back.

Currently have the first chapter almost finished, plus bits of the middle and the entire final scene. I've tossed 2,150 words onto a document posted on Google Docs. It needs a lot of polishing, but I'm in the throw-everything-on-the-page draft stage. Not sure if I'll be releasing chapters as I go along, or if I'll draft it all at once and edit it before posting chapters. Might just write it all out, go back and polish, and then post it. However, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I want to get this thing out there and fast.

It's a cold story, I'll give it that. Lots of references to snow, ice, cold, chills. I think Thomas will be wanting that proximity with Muraki, though that's certainly no consolation. The headspace version of His Paleness is crabbing because I tossed a guy who's about his own age at him, instead of someone young and impressionable. I keep reminding him that he gets to mess with Vincent Cassel, who'd the definition of easy on the eyes, so he's dealing with it.

In which I've been working, planning our annual Hallowe'en trip to Salem, MA (which will be taking place next week, when Dad and I have some time off from work), digging up more lights and things for our Hallowe'en yard haunting, poking at various fanfic projects (which I should type up), watching various anime or TV serieses online (currently "Castle" and "Yu Yu Hakusho") and tagging carpe_ho_ras RP threads.

Re: Fanfics: I'm slowly poking away at the 31_halloween fics, but it's rather slow-going, as I'm writing YnM fics, and Hallowe'en is a fairly recent import to Japan (from what I've heard), so I've had to handwave a few things in order to make some of the prompts work.

Why yes, it's another Gormenghast ramble: I guess this is my latest Aspie fixation, and it's certainly a rich one...

One of the latest in a series of packages of things bough via Amazaon showed up today, bringing a collection of short stories by Mervyn Peake, including most prominently "Boy in Darkness", a kind of side-story to the Gormenghast novels. There's an interesting point which Maeve Gilmore (Mrs. Mervyn) makes in the preface:

"[N]o book, however long, can possibly chronicle every incident in its character's life. There are many events, and adventures or meetings with people which take place outside the book, just as we, however close we are to our families or friends, can only know a small part of what makes up other people's lives."

You could definitely use that as an apologia for fanfiction writing. We fanfic writers are merely writing the bits that the canon creator didn't write, didn't think to write, or decided not to write. There's apparently a notebook in which Peake had jotted a bunch of ideas for Gormenghast, which never made it into the bricks, including the possibility of making the Steerpike/Fuschia pairing fully canonic (up to and including SP impregnating Fuschia, which leads to her suiciding; I can't help wondering if the "SP as a Groan bastard" theory which mini-series canon strongly yet subtly supports is in there as well, because if it isn't, it was a lost opportunity on Peake's part since it puts the story into the same league as Greek tragedy). Which leads me to add that I'm poking at a pair of very short "missing scene" fanfics: one which explains why Fuschia in her mid-twenties is described as "no longer a virgin" (ie. I reveal who her lover/bed-buddy is; not telling till I post it) and the other is a rather tragic sketch set after her suicide, in which Prunesquallor has to do a post-mortem examination.

Also, I have (technically) finished reading the bricks! Though I had a moment of "Hey, wait, what?" when I happened to open the omnibus and find that "Titus Alone" was several chapters longer than my stand-alone paperback edition (the Ballantine paperback from the 1970s). I was more than a little irritated, since I don't tend to like the edited version of anything. However, it turns out the edits were made in order to make the narrative more coherent. Which lead me to think, "Okay, I can get that from an editorial standpoint, but from a thematic and creative standpoint, it kind of goes against the grain of a world where madness and eccentricity dominate and where things losing their meaning is the order of the day."

I have to admit, I rather liked "Titus Alone", not quite as much as the first two books, but I still enjoyed it immensely. And as I move toward intro'ing one version of Titus Groan at a Certain Mansion, I'm thinking of making some strong references to elements in it, although his entry point will be coming at the end of the books/end of the mini-series, since I'm combining book and mini-series canon (it's sort of book continuity with the trappings of the mini-series, thus he won't be expecting an Evil Albino when he meets our SP).

...I get lax about ye journal, and I've even been spotty about posting on Twitter. I will try to rectify this in due time, that and it's been rather quiet here lately, aside from Friday when I went shopping at Target, intending to get socks and a new pair of black jeans. I ended up buying only socks, since the only black jeans where those weird "trendy" pre-distressed ones that make me think of rejects from the St. Vincent de Paul or the Salvation Army thrift stores. I decided I'm gonna keep my worn pair till they really fall apart.

Also got in some coffeeshop writing, to the tone of another Yami no Matsuei shortfic, featuring more dreamwalking (or apparent dreamwalking), only involving Tsuzuki being nibbled on (or so he thinks) by a different energy vampire, namely Mercy Falcone, my OFC from "Akatsuki". It was a crack idea that just popped into my head, and I fell in love with the idea (mostly because I think of Tsuzuki as being bi and I wanted to see what would happen if I threw a pretty girl into his lap) but it's likely to cause some kerfuffling, since some people are likely to think this means Mercy supposedly some distant relative of Muraki, and oh noez, a Mary Sue!111. Not really, as she puts it in another fic I'm working on, "I'm as related to him as a nice mutt is related to a pedigree Akita." In fact, if you hint that she's anything like Muraki, she'll remind you that she just needs to absorb small, non-lethal amounts of energy from people -- usually crowds or Tatsumi when his insomnia is keeping him up at night -- and she has nowhere near the same level of talent as "that pale, one-eyed creep".

Continuing from a previous post...

Paige Brewster is now safely in custody (and hopefully having some kind of counseling to retrain her brain and help her care for her own well-being more); it (unfortunately) seems our boy picked up another would-be "dark bride". I have a feeling this may have caused her to leave this (grave)dirtbag. Granted, there's another girl out there who needs help, but if things went down as I suspect they did ("I tawt i wuz ur WUN TWOO DARK KWEEN!!!111"), no doubt Paige is likely to sing like a canary and bring the boys in blue onto her kidnapper's doorstep. With or without the pitchfork and torch mob, or using those taser-collars on a six-foot long rod seen in "Daybreakers". I'm almost hoping someone goes vigilante on this jerk, stakes him and cuts his head off for (poetic) justice.

Of course this has me in a vile mood (partly due to hormones) and I've been doing a bit of writing therapy, in the form of a semi-RPF crossover with Mercy Falcone threatening to go postal on Sharkey, and Tatsumi trying without much success to talk her down from her fury, succeeding only when he breaks out of Concerned Gentleman Friend mode and orders her to turn over her badge and her service rifle. I doubt I'll finish this one or post it where anyone can see it, even though it's rather good. Either that or I'll file off the serial numbers and publish it as original fiction, maybe even bring Mercy's (widowed) husband Doyle into the picture.

So I took a look at the traffic report for my fics on fanfiction.net and I'm surprised and delighted with the results:

( Cut to fit a table )

This is just the top ten of my fics on there, and I'm surprised and delighted that my one "Truman Show" magnum opus is in the top slot. I'm also pleased that my two "Gattaca" fics ("Flesh of My Flesh" and "Blood of My Blood") are in the top ten. Three of my Cecie Martin stories ("Conversations...", "Runnin' Loose..." "One of THOSE...") are in the top ten, as well; I'm puzzled as to why "The Shadows Between the Neon" isn't there, as it's the best of the series, but it is a long (and somewhat gruesome) story. I'm pleased at how well my two personal favorite "Yami no Matsuei" fics ("Akatsuki" and "Tale of the Kun-Lun Slave") are doing. And the sheer number of people reading my "A.I."/"Harry Potter" crossover is making me realize I need to get back to that one, though I have to say, I'm still not sure where I was going with that one; I've got the climax written, but the hard part is *getting there*. We'll see...

I'm also glad I signed up on "An Archive Of Our Own": I like the interface immensely (being able to upload your fic from *anywhere* online -- that alone is priceless and well worth the waiting period I had to go through when I signed up) and I like the extremely high quality of the writing on there. Granted, a lot of the fics tend to be copied over from LiveJournal, but there's a lot that aren't anywhere else online. I wish there was a little more traffic, and that people would comment on things I've posted, but it's like a little known hideaway in a big city: you know that the people who go there really value the place and the service it provides.

Also have been poking around on Amazon.com and found a DVD of (don't laugh) one of my favorite Sesame Street specials ever, "Big Bird in Japan"; I was getting older (middle-school/junior high school) when this one first aired on PBS, but I remember it fairly well, up to and including having one of the songs from it ("We're Going to Kyoto") come back to me. Well, to quote C.S. Lewis "When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childish things", so I've ordered a copy.

One of the things that sparked yesterday's rant about unplowed sidewalks (and which lead to the entire day almost going down the drain) was the fact that I needed to get out and buy a new purse since the strap on the one I was using (and I only bought maybe three months ago. Damn cheap Wal-Mart purses) had worked loose from the metal link holding it to the body of the purse and I had cobbled it back together using (don't laugh) a Hello Kitty clip-on that my mother had given to me. Well, the cobble-job only worked so well and it had a nasty tendency to come unhooked at the most inappropriate times, such as when I was trying to get to a buried bus stop. Thus I missed the bus yesterday, which lead to the first melt-down I have had in months. I'm not proud of it and I am trying to move on, but right now I'm still somewhat in self-loathing mode on account of it.

Anyway... I finally managed to get out and get to the Target in Lowell, where I found a new -- and much more sturdy-looking -- purse, which I promptly moved my personal effects into since I was sick of fighting with the cobble-job. It seems purses these days have become these small suitcase-sized affairs you could easily stuff a small child into, and since I like to carry a small, discreet one, I was a bit disconcerted, though I managed to find something that didn't look like the kind of rig a professional shop-lifter or kidnapper would use. I'm shocked: not only can I fit all my personal effects in it, I can also tuck in the small pads of paper which I've started carrying with me everywhere to make it easier to jot stories/ideas. And there's even room to fit in a paperback book or two, which frees up more space in the canvas totebag I generally carry in addition to the purse.

I also did the writerly thing and worked on one of the fics in progress while having lunch in the small Starbucks inside the Target: I completed one of the "Daybreakers" fics I've promised for the Lightning Round on help_haiti (an Edward Dalton gen fic, in this case, inspired by "Into the Light", one of the cuts on the soundtrack CD) and I started poking at yet another Yami no Matsuei fic (featuring a younger and less corrupt Muraki having a revelatory heart to heart conversation with his grandfather about the way the younger Muraki's proclivities have started to run).

Now to finish reorganizing the "writing" tag, though I'm taking a break, since there's about 200 entries to go through.

Started watching Trigun in earnest: gotta love Vash the Stampede, he's like Abel Nightroad's goofy kid brother who stole Alucard's red duster and orange sunglasses, then modded them a little. Also had more Hey, It's That Voice moments: Vash sounding like The Other Shinigami Named Kurosaki (Ichigo, in Bleach, which I need to get back to); Aramaki as yet another Random Old Guy; Meryl sounding suspiciously like Rit-chan from Those Who Hunt Elves, and a cameo of Mistress Celcia's VA from ditto.

One project that I ditched: adding more tropes to the Yami no Matsuei page on TVTropes. I realized there were way too many tropes (particularly eye-related ones) that fit Muraki too well and I got sick of it.

I also came up with a theory on the identity of the mysterious Edward McLeod, who voiced a certain crooked energy vampire: I remembered something from the commentary on the Evangelion DVDs, where Matt Greenfield came forward as the VA for Huyuuga, and described how he'd stepped in, under a stage name to fill the role when the guy they'd contracted just never showed up for the recording sessions. I wonder if something similar happened when they were dubbing YnM, only in this case, the VA who was supposed to voice Muraki ditched the role after he read through all the scripts, probably thinking to himself, "I can't voice this character, he's an evil [expletive][deleted] in every sense of the words!"

Also banging away on the last full chapter of the Twhinelite crossover: I'd started to write one bit that hinted that something might be going on between Tatsumi and Mercy while the boys were out chasing vampires and whiny girls, but then I remembered that Mercy had been out looking for Bella, though I suppose it's logical she could have gone back to the crummy hotel after she found Bella had gone missing from the hospital. Still, it was fun to imagine the boys' suspicions when one of them notices that the buttons of a certain meticulous fellow's vest are somehow buttoned crookedly...