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

I'd thought about going for a walk today/running some errands downtown, but I realize I just need a day to goof off and relax. write/type some fic, catch up on RP tags, read, that sort of thing. I've got two short Gormenghast fics waiting to be typed up, and which likely will show up later on, courtesy of Write or Die. One of them is a reply to a comment_fic prompt, and I hope it's slashy enough for the OP: the pairing is Steerpike/Titus, and I personally find that pairing to be somewhat "Mmmm... no, not likely". Jonathan Rhys-Meyers notwithstanding, I don't see SP as a very sexual being to begin with, never mind one that would be conducive to slash-ficcage (*cough-cough*Freudian Excuse*cough-cough*). That and if it's BBC mini-series canon, that makes the pairing a bit squicky to those who take note of the "SP as a Groan bastard" element that's in play and who, like me, aren't big on that sort of thing, unless it's handled like Greek tragedy.

Now reading the first of Naomi Novak's "Temeraire" novels (Iskierka's canon to the carpe_ho_ras crowd); the reviewers who compare it to Christopher Paolini sort of need their heads checked, as the writing is a lot better and considerably less derivative, though I had to smile when someone compared it to Jane Austen. If I was to compare it to anything, I'd say Ms. Novak did with dragons what Susannah Clarke (she of "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) did with wizards.

The debit card incident turned out to be a bit of a false alarm: turns out something did try to jack the account, but they kept it out and they wanted me to make sure that several recent transactions were legit. Whew. Glad to know they're vigilant about this.

However, the day wasn't the best anyway: mom is having some major emotional issues due to mail harassment from her relatives. I know this is a deep-seated issue for her and it sets off a lot of triggers, but I wish she wouldn't get so worked up about it. Thus, I'm still feeling some of her pain and it's making things hard for me. Things like writing and RP tagging and reading.

I did manage to get most of another story_lottery story written today. For "Home Sweet Home", I somehow got the inspiration to write an alternate ending to Joanna Harris's "Chocolat". I love the rich, redolant style of that book, but the condescending sneers directed at the Catholic Church was a bit much, even if some of it was marginally justifiable (the parish priest bordered on being a bit of a Manichaeist and I kept wanting Vianne to give him a big ol' smooch to soften him up and remind him that he's a *man* as well as a priest). The movie toned that down considerably, but I didn't like how Pere Reynaud pretty much got run out of town. I mean, can't Christianity and "the Old Ways" coexist?? For someone of the Old Ways to sneer at Christians, that to me is simply doing what too many Christians do to said followers of the Old Ways, and shouldn't someone be the one to be the bigger person and not stoop to that? So I decided to write an epilogue with a forlorn Reynaud coming back and having an interesting confrontation with Vianne, in which she helps him to see where he belongs in his self, as well as in the world. "Home Sweet Home" isn't just a place, it's a part of your self, too...

Not a whole lot happening today, but quiet days are good days in and of themselves. I just seem to have been having a lot of those lately and it's wearing on me since I feel a bit unproductive.

I managed to get all but one of the centi_50 drabbles typed, and the last one I'm hesitating on, probably since the last time I wrote the pairing it entails, I got a bit creeped out by some of the comments I got for it. I've finally started to break the dam-up that happened with the Fanfic Roses, and I hope I can finally get something posted later tonight, though I'm running out of "short" fics to type up. I did try to make these shorter than some of the 12 Days of Fanfic stories, but a few of them got longish.

Though part of the reason for my troubles getting fully motivated to type is, I got up to an especially intriguing part in A Game of Thrones... and I am in Can't Put the Book Down mode.

I could have managed to get by starting at nine this morning, and mind you, I'd *tried* to finagle going in at that hour: the store was dead until then and didn't really pick up till 10.30. And I swear to God, if I heard one more person whinging about the snow, I was about to turn them around and point out the fact that it Wasn't Sticking To The Ground At All (oddly enough, until about now the only place it's been sticking has been in my very sheltered yard).

But enough grumbling about people grumbling. I managed to get a couple more fanfic roses written -- only to have two more decide to tack themselves on to the list, meaning I'm up to fifteen roses. The hard part is trying to stagger them, since a goodly number come from the same fandom: at this point, I've got four "A.I." fics and three Yami no Matsuei fics, besides the assorted other fandoms, so I just have to figure out how to space them. Don't ask me why, I just feel odd about posting fics from the same fandom on consecutive days. I guess it's a form of wanting to spread out the fun. The hard part, though, is the fact that I have to be in the right frame of mind to write in certain fandoms, so sometimes they don't get written out in the order that I'd like to, so making sure I've got them staggered to my liking can be a bit of a juggling act. I'm also finding that, despite the fact that I'm writing shorter fics than I did for Christmas, I'm having a harder time getting them written, though I suppose getting asked to take on extra hours today didn't help (one reason I've been so out of sorts about it). And then there's the nine bjillion prompt comms I keep making the mistake of looking at, when I have yet to finish the centi_50 prompts I picked up, to say nothing of typing up the 30_kisses fics I have in the editing room.

I mentioned recently that I got the inspiration to write a semi-songfic based on "Behind Blue Eyes" by the Who when the song happened to pop up on the radio the other day. I know it's probably just a case of the song just happening to be in the current rotation of the radio station involved, but I put the radio on just now and guess what was playing as I did so? That makes the third time in two days I've heard "Behind Blue Eyes" just as I flick the radio on. It's creepy, like someone is trying to tell me something, or I'm being compelled to write the damn thing (especially since I'm being annoyed by the memory of a bad OOC!Angsty!Agent Smith fic based on it from back in the day).

It's coming out more as a character sketch of sorts, or a series of vignettes with some of the lyrics as a framing device, dealing with the inner angst and self-loathing that a younger Muraki is hiding from the world. As arrogant and vain as our boy might be, I get the feeling that a part of him despises himself for allowing himself to be consumed by his own inner demons, a part of him that only maybe one or two people (Sakaki and/or Oriya) has ever seen up close and personal. It's a challenge to write, mostly because younger!Muraki is so different from the creepy bastard fandom knows, plus there's elements creeping in that some people are likely to object to, specifically a bit involving a suicide attempt that's as much a case of our boy being theatrical as it is a case of his self-loathing turning to self-destruction. I can just hear the angry comments, "Muraki wouldn't do that." Well, yes, the Muraki known from the anime and the manga, the confident, practiced killer who's honed his abilities into an artform wouldn't do that, but what about a younger, sadder version who's still trying to cling to the last fraying shreds of his innocence, even as his idealism has decayed to despair and anger?

Yes, I know this week has been a messy one between work injuries and snowstorms and unplowed sidewalks and missed appointments with one's therapist, but we've got... three fics for the help_haiti challenge to write. Please get your neurons together in a timely fashion and focus on those instead of on other fandoms! That includes the borderline song-fic inspired by The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" and the till now thankfully forgotten memory of the OOC!Angsty!Agent Smith-fic based on said song which we read back in the day. I could see using this song for a fic about a younger and less corrupt Muraki (even though his eyes are silvery-grey and not exactly blue, though some frames in the anime give them a bluish tinge depending on lighting or the animator), but not an Agent: they don't get angsty since they don't quite have emotions, except for Smith, but then then again, he actually has them and hates them. If you're going to write about blue-eyed characters, you've got a AU "A.I." fic about David to write.

MR's brain: But we wrote half of it, what about jotting a few notes on --

MR: Not another word!

I'm burning to write more fics in the Lightning Round of the auction, and so far, I've gotten one bid in for the main auction. I have a feeling if this bidder wins the auction, it's going to be a "Daybreakers" prompt, and that's one fandom I'm itching to write in, though I need a little nudge to get my mind out of Yami no Matsuei-fic-writing mode. There's still time and plenty of chances to buy a piece of my time and talent and to help the survivors of the earthquake:

http://matrixrefugee.livejournal.com/517840.html

A while back, I'd written a fake/fic trailer for a possible "Constantine" fanfic, called "The Changing of the Guard", inspired by such random things as the passing of Pope John Paul II and the autocephalic "branches" of the Catholic Church (translation: oddball groups who have had such a disagreement with the Pope that they decide to take matters into their own hands and elect one of their own as a bogus Pope; there's at least three or four that I know of, including a French priest and a group of wack-job Traditionalists in Pennsylvania who "consecrated" a nineteen year old seminarian as their "Pope". Normally, I'm open-minded about how people choose to live their faith, but if they're going to start pulling things like this, I have to start drawing the line on their credibility.), but I later shelved the project for various reasons. I'd started thinking about it again recently, most notably because I'd re-read some of my "Constantine" fics and I thought about picking this one back up again. Well, this morning, I found I'd gotten a glowing review for "The Smoke of Satan in Your House" and the person who posted it asked me if I was ever going to post that one. Well, I took this as a sign to start working on it again, though this means having to dig up the notes for it, including the draft of the first chapter (which seems to have gone AWOl.

To say nothing of finding some way to chase the darn shinigami out of my head: the shadow-caster and the snarky empath actually listen when I push them back, but that puppy-dog one with the sweet tooth (and his Stalker with a Crush the crooked energy vampire) persists on staying in my head and being bloody cute about it.

Had to get more Airborne since I've been taking it the moment I get home from work lately: a lot of co-workers have been coughing and I don't want to take any chances.

And I also picked up a copy of Charlaine Harris's "A Touch of Dead", which collects her Sookie Stackhouse short stories into one place: nice little volume with some nice pen and ink-wash drawings. I also swung by the library to print out more Yami no Matsuei scanlations (specifically the Oriya/Ukyou arc; I'm trying to get the elusive uncollected chapters printed before the scanlation sites start carrying the collected versions once Vol. 12 is released in Japan next week), but I also found, in the book swap the fourth of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels (I'm still missing the second one), "2061: Odyssey Three" by Arthur C. Clarke, which rounds out that series, and Laurell K. Hamilton's "The Lunatic Cafe". Can anyone tell me whereabouts in the Anita Blake series that LKH started to lose her touch? I'm hoping to read anything from before that point but I want to get the titles straight in my head.

And the last of the 12 Days of Fanfic is set to go live just after midnight; I'm going to miss doing this and I'm wondering now if there is a Valentine's Day-related challenge going on out there. I said I was going to take a break from writing for a day or two, but I'm not sure if my mind will let me. :: laughs:: Especially since I have a fic or two that decided to be something like the Valentine's Day decorations and stuff which show up in the store windows the day after Christmas (one is a follow-up to the last "A.I." fic I posted for the 12 Days challenge, the other is -- yep -- another YnM fic and the first in the 30_kisses challenge, though not based on the first prompt).

For some strange reason (Okay, I was waiting till they went on sale), I neglected to get myself a calender for my room and for my other desk in the computer room. Mind you, the other desk is pretty much a catch-all for books/papers/coffee cups/computer components/etc, and I rarely actually use it for desk-like purposes such as sitting at it or writing on it. I have my Edith Wharton moments when I write best when I'm curled up in bed, or I do the writer-y thing and write in a coffee shop, or I make like my dad's work buddy "Dana"'s "Uncle Steve" (who is a very famous author from Maine; three guesses as to who he is...) and write at the keyboard.

Needless to say, I snagged one calender that I wanted and another that was a surprise. I'd spotted an origami page-a-day calender in the store front Barnes & Noble in downtown Lowell and planned to get that one; I lucked out and they had just one left when I went in this morning. Also picked up a copy of "The Historian" from their bargain table as well as a nifty journal with my favorite Edgar Allen Poe quote on the front: "All there is that we say or seem/Is but a dream within a dream". Not sure what I'll use it for, but I'll think of something.

I tried getting a Tolkien-themed calender from the calender shoplet in the Burlington Mall, but no such luck: someone beat me to it, which is the first time in a while (last year I got a Dresden Files calender featuring Chris McGrath's cover artwork). I scanned around for something good; the "TrueBlood" calenders had sold out, almost got a "Nightmare Before Christmas" calender, but I settled on a Death Note calender. If I can stand two different pics of Misa Amane for two different months. Not sure who I dislike more -- in a healthy way -- her or Light: Light at least is more complex and "in-te-res-ting", while I can never tell if Misa is really so ditzy that she's oblivious to what a jerk Light really is (wow, an in-universe fangirl who's all Draco In Leather Pants for the crooked guy), or if she's really as twisted as he is. Poor Ryuuk, he only gets one page. What can I say? I like shinigami, even when they're weird looking gothic skeleton-bird critters.

One thing I passed on was a Bleach calender: I like the concepts of the series, but the huuuuge cast of characters (especially when the team heads to the Soul Society) is dizzying. I can't keep the names straight with the faces of the Soul Reapers beyond Rukia. Thus I am trying to beat into submission that part of me which wants to start incorporating a few elements from Bleach into some of my Yami no Matsuei fics. This included an otherwise funny yet serious conversation between Tatsumi and Morgan Falcone (my OC) in which Morgan describes her teenaged daughter Allison (the both of them died in the same car accident; Allie didn't want to move on and leave her mother behind when Morgan was selected to work for the Ministry of Hades) trying to sneak over to the Soul Society because Allison thinks she wants to have a kid. I can't decide if Morgan is a borderline Mary Sue or if my Sue-dar is just being over-sensitive. But then again, when is the last time you saw a thirty-five year old Sue in fanfiction?

Trinity Blood fic to be posted in later tonight; I'm pleased at how well it turned out. And I completely surprised myself by managing to scribble out the Evangelion snowball fight fic I've been playing with for a while: it's nice to see these folks actually *enjoying* life for a change (even if that includes Gendo being his usual wet-blanket self in the middle of the snow-nanigans).