Watashi wa bara no sadame ni umareta...

2010 media

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:30:33 GMT

Stolen from ruhenheim :)

This doesn't include anime and manga, which I already track over at MAL, or flash games I play for free online. It does include light novels and live-action stuff. I guess I'll probably list TV shows by season.

BOOKS
1. Furies of the Calderon (Codex Alera), Jim Butcher
2. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson), Rick Riordan
3. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson), Rick Riordan
4. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson), Rick Riordan
5. Dead Beat (Dresden Files), Jim Butcher
6. The Ballad of Beta-2 and Empire Star, Samuel R. Delany
7. Nova, Samuel R. Delany (in progress)
8. The Stealer of Souls (Elric), Michael Moorcock (in progress)

MOVIES

TV SHOWS
1. Emma (2009) (in progress)
2. Farscape S2 (in progress)

VIDEO GAMES
1. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (in progress)

Yuletide recs - second batch

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:49:05 GMT

Got kind of sidetracked by Twelve Kingdoms novel translations, but I still have a bunch more Yuletide fics to rec. I've only incidentally read the Yuletide Madness stuff, and still haven't gotten to a lot of the fairy tales, but I figured this would be a good place to drop off another batch of recs.

Anastasia

faded from the winter is a great Anastasia fic about Anastasia and Dimitri while they were still children living in the palace. It's a very nice and IC glimpse of how they might've interacted with each other pre-canon.

Catch-22

A Fate Worse Than Bologna is about zombies, and really, how could anyone resist a Catch-22 fic about zombies? I wish more of the novel's characters appeared, but everyone's reactions are so pitch-perfect, I really can't complain.

Chrono Trigger

Samsara is an excellent fic, set after the first game, where Janus/Magus contemplates Crono and Marle's love and lives, and gets trolled by the guy at the End of Time. I really like how this one ends :)

Community

Troy/Abed is such a great ship, and The Time(s) Where: is cool and geeky and IC and just everything I would've wanted. (I do wish it was longer, but them's the breaks with Madness.)

Earthsea

Like, I didn't even know I shipped Ged/Vetch until I read Chasing Shadows. It's such a great fic though; really sweet, and feels like the sort of thing Le Guin would've written if she'd wanted to take the story in that direction.

The Handmaid's Tale

Sisters of Bilhah is just a fantastic fic, a look at a woman who works with an agency helping refugee women from the Republic of Gilead. There aren't any canon characters in it (well, one client may be Offred), but it gives a really great look into the world of the novel.

Howl's Moving Castle

Playing With Fire is just a really cute slice of life fic set after the series, where Calcifer plays with Howl and Sophie's son.

Hurog Series

Dragon Horde is a great fic about Ward and Oreg set after the first novel. I don't ship these two, but I really like their relationship, and the author does a great job of portraying them here. It's a very sweet fic too, which I like.

I am Maru

[ I succeeded in crawling into the breast of my big boss! ] is possibly the greatest fic of all time. (Of all time!) I want an entire fandom's worth of fics about Maru and his apartment.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

I'm not that interested in fic for this series, but King's Man is the S&N fic I never knew I needed. It's about Childermass traveling around with Vinculus and being trolled by the Raven King, and is exactly as lulzy as it sounds.

Let the Right One In

What Eli and Oskar Do on Their (First) Summer Vacation really feels like a continuation of the movie. I like how... idk, weirdly mundane it is, just like the movie, and I love Eli and Oskar's interactions and conversations.

Leverage

There were a lot of really great Leverage fics this year. I especially enjoyed The New York ComicCon Con, where Hardison, Eliot, and Parker steal ComicCon, Alternate Planning, where the team uses a very unorthodox method of planning their next heist, Your head's a dead tomato splot with moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch. where Hardison throws the team a Christmas party, the christmas eve job, which is just excellent and heartbreaking, Evolution of a Geek, where little Hardison is introduced to SF by his grandmother, Yang, where the team pulls off a heist at an underground auction (there's a White Collar companion fic to this, though I can't judge it since I don't know the fandom), and Four Times Hardison Told His Nana He Was Sorry, And One Time He Said He Was (But Totally Wasn't), where we learn about some of Hardison's early exploits.

*takes deep breath*

Seriously though, read everything in this category, it's all amazing.

Like Water For Chocolate

La Adelita is the fic I never knew I needed about Gertrudis. It's set after she rides off with the soldier, about her being amazing with the revolution, and it does a great job of extending the magic realism of the novel.

Lilo and Stitch

all your heart-melodies is getting recced a lot, and really deserves it. It's about Lilo growing up and becoming more mature, but without losing her essential Lilo-ness. Really, really great fic.

A Very Important Day is another good fic in this fandom; Lilo and Stitch have an important day ahead of them, but they spend the morning hanging out at the beach.

The Lion King

All the Lonely Moments focuses on Nala, and everything she was doing while Simba was away. I really liked the emphasis on her story and agency, and I felt the fic was very plausible.

Little Women

Quiet and Lonely Days is the only kind of fic I'm really interested in reading for Little Women; just a simple story about a regular day in the life of the Marches.

Submachine

It never even occurred to me to ask for fic for this! I'm glad Shusu did, because All My Wires Without Traces is really great. I love the way the game mechanics are intertwined with the story of the protagonist.

And with that, I am going to go play the new KH game for a while, and then maybe read some fic about magical black unicorns and the rulers who love them and/or go to sleep. I have more recs in Delicious, but I'll post them tomorrow.

Yuletide recs - first batch

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:45:04 GMT

I feel like I'll be reading fic for the rest of my life... dunno if that's good or bad. You can read everything I've been bookmarking under my yuletide tag in Delicious, albeit with minimal information. I'm kind of hitting that fic fatigue point where I can't enjoy stuff I would usually like, so I figured this would be a good time to stop and do some recs. At some point, when the server load has gone down some, I'll have to go back and comment on all of these; but for now I'll settle for drawing attention to them.

First off, I want to rec the really awesome Kill Bill fic that was written for me: A Battle Without Honor and Humanity! It's an awesome fic about Nikki Green (Bell in the fic, she takes her mother's name) gets her revenge against Beatrix... with BB being her path in. The prose is fantastic, Nikki is just amazing, and I just really love everything the author did with this fic.

Now for the other recs!

Aladdin

Treasures is Aladdin telling the story of how he got Abu. The whole story just makes me want to go "Oh, Aladdin," in both the good way and the bad way :D

Alien (movies)

Subtle Salvation is AU after the second movie, a really fantastic fic about Ellen and Dwayne saving humanity and having an epic love story on top of it.

Killing Elvis is a hilarious fic, told in email between the scientists working on one of the Alien specimens, and their evil company overlords. Being in a technical field myself, so many of the little details rang true (especially the parts where things go horribly wrong), and I loved (or loved to hate) every single character in this fic.

Beauty and the Beast (Disney)

The two fics written for this fandom really complement each other, I think. Bittersweet is an AU where Belle reached Beast just barely too late, and... well, it's just like the title says. Rose Without Thorn is sort of the opposite; it's set after Beast has been turned back, and Belle is trying to get used to the change. They're both excellent fics.

The other one I really liked was Shadows in the Forest, which is Gaston-centric. It's a really great look at his family, and all the dynamics that might have shaped the man we see in the series. I really like how's it's sympathetic without excusing his many issues.

Black Lagoon

I'm not even sure how to summarize Speak, Mirror. It's about Revy, and Balalaika, and Eda, and one small thread of a much larger story. It twists around and ends in a different place than it started, but in a very natural way; really, it's just another day in the Roanapur underworld.

Bridge of Birds

In The Huli Jing, Master Li is called to solve the case of a bride who seems to be turning into a fox every night. It really feels like something straight out of the series, and the outcome of the case is appropriately twisty.

Calvin and Hobbes

Every Day is a Reminder is a Calvin/Susie fic, set as they're growing up, and after they grow up. I especially like the way Hobbes is integrated into this fic; I'm very picky about the way he's treated as Calvin grows up, but I had absolutely no complaints here. I also love the way Calvin and Susie grow up; it's one of those fics that makes you feel like you're a next-door neighbor or something.

The Lengthy Dimly Lit Coffee Break of the Psyche is another one set after they're grown up; Calvin attempts to deal with the world of full-time employment. Really love Hobbes in this one too, and Susie is also awesome.

While I do like grown-up C&H fics, I was really craving something where Calvin is still young, and fortunately Yuletide delivered that too! Spaceman Spiff Goes To Chirrutzz is a fic about Spaceman Spiff fighting a particularly intransigent alien species, and in Who Is I Am, Calvin invents something really weird.

Community

Common Knowledge has Jeff/Annie as the pairing, but it's told from the point of view of Britta. I think what I really liked most about it was the Jeff+Britta friendship.

The Sum of Educated People is a Jeff/Britta fic, and though I'm lukewarm on the pairing, I really liked it in this fic. Jeff was sufficiently douchy enough to be IC, but at the same time you could see how he'd grown, and though it was more subtle, you could see how Britta grew too. I really liked everyone's futures, too.

I really wasn't expecting to like Fundamentals of Chemistry; I don't ship Troy/Annie, for various reasons. But in this fic it works really well, I think because the focus is on the Troy-->Annie side. I loved Shirley, Abed, and Britta as the peanut gallery too; the characterization was great all-around.

Dinocomics

Apocalypse How? is amazing and hilarious and wonderful. The devil is awesome, and T-Rex is awesome, and Utahraptor is awesome, and Dromiceiomius is awesome, and you should read it right now :D

Fairy Tales
(Should say at the outset that I'll probably be making way more recs in this category later.)

Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Duckling has nothing supernatural in it at all, but it's a fantastic story about Jordan, a transracial adoptee. It's about all the complicated feelings related to that, but also her complicated feelings about, y'know, everything else in her life.

The Queen's Lament is a more traditional story, about a wise queen and her changeling children. The resolution was perhaps a bit too pat, but I still enjoyed it very much.

Futurama

Just Dessert is, like, the perfect Futurama Christmas fic. Leela is awesome, Fry and Bender are... well, not awesome, but being their usual dopey selves.

Homestar Runner

Strong Sad's Litany of Crushed Hopes and Dreams: okay, I never expected to come out of Yuletide kind of shipping Marzipan/Strong Sad, and yet... here I am. The fic itself is gen; Strong Sad finds out about Marzipan's secret hiding spot (how did you think she evaded sbemail?), and they strike up a really sweet friendship with each other.

Monster

Only one fic this year! But at least it was a pretty good one. Schutzwall is Lunge's thoughts about the Tenma case, interspersed with his thoughts on the Berlin Wall. Lunge is one of my favorite characters, and the author really gets him down, I think. (Though one slight canon quibble; wasn't Lunge a West German detective?)

Mulan

A Voice that Soars. A Mulan fic. With musical interludes. That work. Best fic ever, amirite? Anyway, more seriously, this is a funny, adorable fic where people keep bothering Cri-kee with their own problems.

Oregon Trail

There were two fics for this fandom, and I liked both of them! Rebekah: The Diary of a Young Woman on the Oregon Trail is, as the title says, the diary entries of a girl named Rebekah traveling with her family to Oregon. The game mechanics are included in both hilarious and serious ways (which, somehow, work really well), and you kind of end up getting ~invested~ in the families and their journey.

And Then We Shot the Ox is a fic where a group takes the Trail in reverse; and as you read on, you realize that it's not the only thing that's been reversed. It's surprisingly haunting.

Princess Tutu

A Shining Star Upon the Highest Bough is an Ahiru+Rue friendship fic. Rue is my favorite character in the series, and I love the relationship between Ahiru and Rue, so it was really a delight to see such a sweet and well-characterized fic.

Revisionism is told in the form of a paper about the discovery of a long-lost Drosselmeyer manuscript. I loved so many things about this: the literary analysis, Autor's comments constantly getting cut off, and the contrasts between the original tale and the "new manuscript" that was found.

Public Service Announcements

map. is based on an old PSA, and basically elaborates on the story of those two guys who are hugging each other in a hospital. It's just really, really sweet and made my heart ache.

The Simpsons

Just Like a Dream slashes Lisa with Juliet Hobbes, a character from the 20th season (can't believe I'm even typing that...). I love grown-up Lisa, and grown-up Juliet, and them being awkward geeky organic activists together.

Skip Beat!

Area Codes details Kyoko and Moko's deepening friendship through their calls and texts to each other. Their relationship is probably my favorite one in Skip Beat, and this fic gets them just right: Kanae's prickliness, and Kyoko's irrepressible optimism, and the ways they truly care for each other.

Mirror, Mirror of the Heart (What do you see in mine?) is a fic about Kyoko's mother, that's just... like, wow. There's a long fairy tale intro that I don't really think was necessary, but everything after that was just perfect. The author did a really great job of taking all the information we have on her in canon and crafting a brilliant character; in particular, I love the echoes of Kyoko that can be seen in her, how understandable (though not excusable) her actions are, and most of all the way she interacts with the other characters.

The Loved Girl (A Portrait in Tabloids) is an omgsocute! Kyoko/Ren fic. They're working on a production where Kyoko has to pretend to be in love with Sho (who's playing the leading role), and she just can't get into character for some reason. Ren helps out.

Sing Along: NGL, I saw that this was a fic about Sho and Reino and almost didn't read it. But I did, and I'm really glad I did! I'm not that interested in Reino in canon, but this fic really hooked me. There's a big focus on his supernatural abilities, which I enjoyed, and I liked seeing his changing opinion of Sho. I really loved how Sho was characterized; in canon, he's this weird blend of pathetic and mean, yet talented and genuinely good at his job. That's very difficult to replicate, but the author does a good job here.

Twelve Kingdoms

Thinking of Taiki is a gen fic about Gyouso and Kouri, the ruler and kirin of Tai, and more specifically about Gyouso putting the kingdom to rights and missing his kirin. I, uh, actually ship these two kind of hard, but hadn't ever expected to see fic about them, and though this is gen, it still made me go all starry-eyed.

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan

The Worst Christmas Ever feels like it's straight out of canon. Shinagawa is helping to decorate the school for Christmas, but what happens when he stands under the mistletoe with Adachi? The whole situation and its resolution is very YtM-ish.

Give Me Your Hand: the epic thumb-wrestling battle of the Student Council, with extra Adachi/Shinagawa cuteness. I especially love the texts with Nerima.

The Case of the Reclusive Delinquent. Noir AU. Do I even need to say anything else?

Yotsuba&

I'm honestly baffled that Today the World Is Dreaming doesn't have a kabillion hits by now. Yotsuba's voice is pitch-perfect, and the story itself is adorable. The author pulls off the shift in tone at the end perfectly.

And now off to do something else and then read and rec some more. I haven't even touched Leverage yet.

Snowflakes falling...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:50:09 GMT

Thanks so much to dharmavati, finnigan_geist, gehayi, musigneus, and painless_j for the snowflake cookies! :D They really brightened up my day.

Yuletide requests

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:36:18 GMT

First, some general notes. I don't want smut for any request, and generally I don't like fics about cheating or break-ups. Other than that, I'm cool with pretty much anything, though of course in each request I note what I would prefer. I love comedy, angst, horror, adventure, fluff, introspective stuff... I'm really very easy to please, I think :D

Specific requests:
1. Kim Stanley Robinson - The Years of Rice and Salt (B)
I would prefer a fic that doesn't focus on white people, but other than that, anything in any era is fine. I picked B as a character, but they don't have to have a main role; as long as they pass through at some point, I'll be happy. (Though if you want to make them the main character, that's fine too :D) I think my favorite arc was Nsara (the second one), if that helps, but really anything at all for this fandom would be awesome.

2. Kill Bill (Nikki Green)
Okay, my dream fic for this one would be Nikki growing up and all out to avenge her mom, and at some point she meets B.B. without knowing whose daughter she is, and they get into either a platonic or romantic relationship, and then Nikki finds out that she's Beatrice's daughter, and then... well, I guess I'm asking you what would happen next. (Obviously this is exempt from my no-breaking-up preference.) Having said that, I'd still be really happy with anything about Nikki: how does she feel right after her mother's death? How does she track down Beatrice? Does she eventually get over it? (My guess is no, but hey, if you can sell me on it...)

3. Static Shock (Ebon)
~~Hurray, it made the cut!~~ Anyway, I specifically requested Ebon because he's my favorite villain from the series, but there's barely any fic for him. Really, I'd be interested in pretty much anything: what was he like when he was growing up with Adam? How does he interact with his crew when they aren't fighting Static? Who does he have a ~crush~ on? What happens to him at the end of the series: is he still stuck to Hotstreak? Has he lost his powers and has to adjust to that? (For that matter, what was it like adjusting to his powers when he got them?) Does he have any unexpected talents or hobbies?

4. Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series (Any)
Okay, my one request for this is that it has to be lolzy, and I would prefer it to be really camp. Also, I'm not as familiar with the second season. Aside from that--I mean, seriously, anything would be awesome. Mako Tsunami/The Ocean! Hairstyle shipping! Kaiba being a dick! Random cross-dressing! Yami/Pegasus! Tristan/Tristan's New Voice! Zorc and Pals shenanigans! Bakura finally gets main character status! All or none of the above!

Warnings!wank, and the post I didn't make about Racefail

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:13:26 GMT

If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a general rundown here, or check out some of the recent posts on metafandom. This is a bunch of stuff, and I don't even know how to organize this in a reasonable way, so I'll just throw everything under random numbers.

1) Squicks and triggers are not the same thing. Let me repeat that: squicks and triggers are not the same thing. I have plenty of squicks*. I do not have even a single trigger** that I am aware of. Most previous warnings discussions that I've seen have focused on squicks or dislikes. This one is not; it is focused on triggers.

2) Please consider banning the following people from your journal, based on statements reproduced here (many of which have since been deleted by their authors): aukestrel, cynatnite, mara_snh. All of them have said further faily things in their own journals, btw, if you have the trainwreck syndrome to stand it. If you only ban one of those people, ban aukestrel; I do not have words strong enough to condemn someone who tries to correct a survivor on her own abuse and her response to it.

3) zvi has said a lot of really insensitive, offensive, and privileged things in this wank (see most of her recent journal entries, including/especially this post, or look here for the Greatest Hits compilation), but one thing in particular that stuck out to me was this post, specifically where she says that only latxcvi and the_willow can talk to her about it. I don't know anything about latxcvi, but the_willow has been very clear about the fact that she is someone who suffers from PTSD and has been triggered by fic.

And--and please tell me if I'm being privileged and appropriative here, I'm extrapolating from a situation where I'm not privileged to a situation where I am, and there are all kinds of pitfalls in that--I see that and I think about how I've felt during the various and sundry Racefails. I'm black; race isn't an area where I'm privileged. And I had (and still have) no interest whatsoever in trying to educate someone who's (possibly maliciously) ignorant, or trying to argue about whether or not I "should" be finding something hurtful and offensive, or, even worse, whether I'm actually being hurt or not. (Because it's bad faith for me to say that you did something racist, but not bad faith for you to assume that I'm lying when I say that I'm hurt or offended.)

If someone, even (perhaps, especially) someone I knew well, had come to me during the Racefails and been all "Hey, jetamors, I don't want to listen to all these other people, you personally must hold my hand and explain to me why [offensively inconsiderate] thing is bad no matter how painful it is for you," I probably would've burst into tears. I can't even express how much that would have hurt. And to me that feels like what zvi is saying to the_willow. (I should make it clear that I'm not trying to speak for the_willow or determine her reactions; she's perfectly capable of doing so herself. I'm saying that due to the potential for great hurt, the_willow shouldn't be placed in that position in the first place.)

I keep going back to two Racefail posts that should be read in tandem, IMHO. The first is Yelling Class, which is (among other things) about people learning how much their privilege hurt the unprivileged when they were confronted with that hurt in a way they couldn't ignore. And after you've read that post, read this one. The author says it better than I can: I. should. not. have. to fucking. cry. in. front. of. you. before. it. clicks. with. you. that. I. hurt. when. I told. you. I. hurt.

If someone says "I'm triggered by non-con, please warn in some way so that I can protect myself," the correct response to that is not "Nah, I'm not convinced that I should warn, you'll have to persuade me." The correct response, if you're a decent human being, is "Sure, I don't want to hurt you," and then you find a way to do so, either by warning for it, or making warnings available for people who want them, or slapping a boilerplate "I don't warn" onto everything so people who might be triggered can avoid your fic. (Or of course if you don't like the word "warn", you can use another word, so long as the information is there.) People keep going "omg slippery slope", but until that actually happens, they need to put the strawman away.

It honestly disgusts me that impertinence felt that she had to make a post like that in order to be taken seriously. It disgusts me more that even after reading that post, and being confronted with that kind of pain, there are still people who don't think there's anything wrong with causing it.

_________
* Defining squick as: something I find gross or unsettling and will immediately back-button out of a fic where it is present. This usually leads to me being grossed out or vaguely sad/unsettled for anywhere between a few minutes or a few days, but it does not interfere with my daily life or my mental health.

** Defining trigger as: something that can give me a reaction anything like this (Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.)

General thoughts

Sun, 10 May 2009 21:30:05 GMT

- To be honest, I can't really say I'm surprised that Bujold is racefailing it up. (With the usual "OMG WHY ARE YOU SO SENSITIVE" choral accompaniment.) And I say that as someone loves the Vorkosigan books, and even got a Yuletide story in that 'verse. I never loved Wrede nearly as much, but yeah, again, not surprised. Still doesn't make it any less hurtful to see, though :(

- Okay, I'm trying to figure out who to write my femgenficathon fic about. Here's what I'm looking for:

1. A woman canonically in a position of authority
2. Who has a canonical friendship with another woman
3. And isn't evil

So far my list of women who qualify is:
- Yoruichi and Soi Fong.
- Possibly Janeway and Seven of Nine? It's been so long since I've seen Voyager, I can't remember much about their relationship.

:/

But I'm probably forgetting lots of women. (I certainly hope I'm forgetting lots of women.) So I'm requesting recommendations for female characters who fit these three criteria. Can be books, TV, movies, manga, anime, video games, basically anything that isn't RL. Ladies of color are especially appreciated :D

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:40:40 GMT

The bad news: Geocities is finally closing down.

The good news: DreamHost is offering a free two-year plan + domain registration for the first 1000 Geocities users who sign up. From their page:

All you have to do is verify you are an existing GeoCities customer by creating a page on your GeoCities account (or editing an existing page) to have the phrase “I’m off to DreamHost!” on it!

Then when you signup for us, simply put the full url to that page as your “promotional code” and you’ll get a 2 year plan (normally $214.80) free!

Which I just did, so pretty soon the HP gen recs page should be available at http://www.jetamors.com . (Though I shudder to think at how many links must be inactive...) Now I just have to figure out whether there's anything else I want to be doing now that I have a domain and a "real" hosting company. Maybe I could set up an FTP or something? What do people do with websites these days?

This year is crap :(

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:27:48 GMT

I keep starting to type out a litany of my woes this year, and then deleting it because lol no one cares, but seriously... this year has sucked MASSIVELY for me so far. (And for reasons almost entirely unrelated to the economy, amazingly.) Anyway, the latest suckitude is that I'm having problems with my laptop screen, so I probably won't be around much for a week or two.

Gen Battle!

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:53:48 GMT

Prompts are up, and the Gen Battle has started!

I've written one short fic for it, and I'd like to do more; in particular, Crossover (Princess Tutu/Yankee-kun to Megane-chan) just begs to be written, though I don't know that I'll be able to pull it off. (Gen Battle not an anime-only challenge, btw; in fact, most of the prompts are for Western fandoms.)

Anyway, here the fic that I wrote, which still doesn't have a title. It's rated G.

"You should stand on your head while you study, Mai. It increases the blood flow to your brain, and you can remember more!"

Mai rolled her eyes from behind the scroll she was reading. "Whatever. We'll see whose exam scores are higher."

Azula, who was lying on the bed listening to the two with mounting boredom, sighed heavily. Both girls immediately refocused their attention on her.

"Shouldn't you be studying too?" Mai asked. "The exam is in two days, you know."

Azula smirked. "I'm a princess, remember? From the royal family of the Fire Nation. I was born with the ability to excel in every area. Studying is not required."

"Really? Wow, Azula, that's so amazing!" Ty Lee gushed. "I wish I could just learn things without studying for them!"

"Yes, well, I'm sure you do your best with what skills you have. Anyway, I'm going down to the courtyard. Maybe there'll be something more interesting there."

***

"Wow, I can't believe I tied with you for highest exam score."

Ty Lee frowned at Mai. "It's not like I'm stupid or anything." She turned to Azula, who was staring silently at the list of scores. "Gee, Azula, I thought you would get the highest score. But your name isn't listed at all."

"Here it is," Mai said, stabbing a finger. "You were looking at the top. Azula's name is down here, at… the bottom…" She trailed off, glancing quickly at Azula.

Azula's expression was livid, and there were tiny flames circling her head. "There. Must. Have. Been. Some. Mistake," she gritted out through clenched teeth. She whirled on her heel, and marched down the hallway toward the headmaster's office.

Mai and Ty Lee watched her in awe. "I've never seen Azula that angry before," Ty Lee said, as the door to the headmaster's office slammed shut.

"It's not surprising. She did get the lowest score in the whole class."

From down the hallway, there was a flurry of raised voices, culminating in a sudden, loud yelp and the distinct smell of burning paper. Ty Lee and Mai looked at each other.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else right now," Mai ventured after a long moment.

"That sounds like a good idea!"

***

"Wow, I can't believe I tied with Ty Lee for second highest score."

"I'm a good student too, you know," Ty Lee pouted. She turned to Azula. "Of course, Azula did better than both of us."

Azula smiled. "Well, of course. Neither of you should expect to compete with the princess of the Fire Nation."

She headed down the hallway; Mai and Ty Lee followed her automatically. "Let's go get something to eat. And while we're there, you can tell me about this whole studying thing. It's not that I need to do it, of course, but perhaps I can help you two improve for the next exam."

"You're always so generous, Azula!" Ty Lee said.

"Yeah," Mai said. "Really generous."

Random stuff

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:24:42 GMT

1) Check out the Gen Battle! It's like the Porn Battle, but without all the sexytimes, and (probably) more zombies. You can leave prompts until the 11th, and after that there'll be an entry to post fics.

2) I've been kind of following the big Racefail thing that's been going on for the last few weeks and vaguely wondering if I should write a post about it. Fortunately, kaiz has said everything I wanted to say, only better.

3) I've had so many awesome fanfic ideas over the last few weeks, but it seems like I always end up doing other things instead of writing them. Self >:(

Yuletide Recs

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:29:23 GMT

Happy Boxing Day, everyone!

I spent most of yesterday either doing family stuff, or devouring Yuletide fics. First of all, the one that was written for me :DDDD

My Yuletide gift is Happy Birthday, Miles, which is a Vorkosigan fic. I wanted something featuring Mark and/or the Koudelkas; they're some of my favorite characters, but not much fic is written about them. (Well, not that there's much Vorkosigan fanfic at all.) Anyway, this one is really cute and awesome; Mark arranges a surprise party for Miles. This being Mark and Miles and Barrayar, there are a few minor disasters, but thanks to the magic of Pizza, everything ends well :D

There were a lot of other good fics in this batch as well! Some of the ones I enjoyed...

For most fandoms, I tried to pick the one or two fics I liked the most, but I really loved all three Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi fics. Two of them are Haruhi/Kyon: in Like Love in the Movies, Kyon finds himself in the middle of an indie romance... maybe. The Exorcism of Suzumiya Haruhi Haruhi decides to perform an exorcism (big surprise, huh?), and Kyon somehow gets cajoled into helping her with it. The third fic is Here, Kitty Boy, and it's Itsuki/Kyon, a pairing I'm usually not really into, but this fic makes it work! (It helps that it 1) involves the ladies; and 2) is hilarious.)

I liked all of the Princess Tutu fics, but my favorite was Spinners of Stories, which was about Autor dealing with his lingering issues wrt Fakir and Drosselmeyer.

There were two Monster fics that I really, really loved. The Mathematics of Worth is a sweet Christmas fic about Eva post-series; she's one of my favorite characters, so I really enjoyed it. and if they're not dead is about Nina and postcards she receives from Johan on his journey back to sanity. It's a simple concept, but the character development is so gorgeous and perfect.

For Claymore, I really enjoyed Pretty Monsters, which is all about Galatea trying to break the whole Claymore cycle of dysfunction. It's a very bittersweet fic, especially since it includes the whole eye thing, but I found it to be satisfying.

I liked all the Skip Beat fics, but my favorite of all was The Work of Chemists. The author has such a great Kyoko voice! And there's lots of Moko! And Kyoko being hilariously, terrifyingly oblivious to the whole Ren thing, and not even noticing that she's breaking his heart (with everyone else laughing at them in the background, of course XD). It's just all-around wonderful.

I like fics where the characters have adventures, so The Jade Fan, a Mulan fanfic, was right up my alley. I guess you could call it Shang/Mulan, but it's really a story about Shang and Mulan having an awesome adventure; they're both IC and fantastic and everything I love about them in the films is there. (Well, not Shang's awkwardness, but everything else!)

Bayside Revisited is a Saved by the Bell fic set at the gang's 15-year high school reunion. I just--I used to watch this show religiously when I was a kid. I'd almost forgotten about it over the years, but this fic was just so note-perfect that it brought back everything I'd loved about it. (Uh, minus most of the cheesiness.) Everyone's future careers and lives and interactions were just so... it feels like a real coda to the series. It's not a sad story, but I admit I was a bit sniffly at the end, because there wasn't going to be any more of it.

The Calvin and Hobbes fic the sandwich story, OTOH, really was trying to make me cry, and definitely succeeded. It's about Calvin growing up, even though he doesn't want to, and things changing. It's really sad, but I think it's the way things really would turn out.

And finally, In Which Worlds Collide and Eeyore Investigates a Terrible Crime, which is a crossover between Winnie the Pooh and Discworld (or more specifically, Granny Weatherwax). It's kind of hard to summarize, but trust me, it's incredibly good. There's even an illustration!

So, that pretty much comes to the end of what I've read and enjoyed so far. There's still lots of other stuff I want to read: the other Vorkosigan fics, the Wall.E fics, the fics for Sunshine, and whatever else people are reccing that sounds good.

It liiiives!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:26:58 GMT

Urk, has it really been a year since I've posted in this journal? :/ Anyway, a few things:

1) If you're an American, GO VOTE TOMORROW, if you haven't already.

2) Forgot to crosspost it to LJ, but I finished my fic Yo Ho a little while back; you can read the last chapter, "A New Picture Book", at FFN. Dunno if I'm all that happy with it, but at least it's over.

3) I'm doing Yuletide this year! \o/

I put everything important in my prompts, but in case you want to do some snooping...

I guess the only dealbreaker I have is that I don't want smut; I don't read it, so if you write it for me things will be... awkward. Aside from that, I'm really very easy to please: I like comedy, I like angst, I like fluff, I like adventures, I like introspective fics, I like epic stuff, I like combinations of these things. I like happy endings, and sad endings*, and I really love bittersweet endings. As a very, very general rule, my preferences are gen > het > f/f > m/m -- but it's not like I hate m/m slash or anything. My fics are all under my fic tag, and if you want to see my reading preferences, you can check out my delicious bookmarks or my FFN favorites.

* With the exception of the Vorkosigan series prompt; I don't mind a bit of angst, but I don't want something completely depressing for that. Not that it has to have angst at all; fluff would also be wonderful! As I said, very easy to please.

4) I keep thinking I should start writing manga reviews for stuff that I like, especially the more obscure stuff. But I don't think I'm very good at articulating that kind of thing; there are a few exceptions, but generally my reactions to manga can be fully summed up in emoticons. I guess I could just do a lot of picspam...

Only Might

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:47:31 GMT

Title: Only Might
Author: jetamors
Fandom: Avatar
Rating: PG-13ish
Warning: Big 3x08 spoilers!
Summary: Highlight to read: Hamma may be imprisoned, but she's learning a lot.
Notes: I originally wrote this in a_white_rain's journal. Haven't written anything in a while, so concrit is (as always) welcome.
___________________
The cage gave Hamma a lot of time to think. She hadn't thought much about the world, and her place in it, before they'd locked her away--first, she had been a child, concerned only with childish things, and then the war had come and there had been no time to stop for anything. Now, however, there wasn't much else to do but think and watch.

She watched the rats that swarmed around the cages, eating any crumbs they could find. The bigger rats were able to bully the smaller ones and take more food for themselves; this was not surprising. As she learned to distinguish one rat from another, however, she learned more. She could see how most of the smaller rats were pushed to the fringes of the group, but one or two, the ones who were especially clever or fierce, were able to get enough food and grow big themselves.

Hamma watched the guards as well, and slowly she began to see many things that reminded her of the rats. There were two kinds of soldiers, she found: those who had guarded the prisoners for years, and would continue to do so for years to come, and those who patrolled for only a short time before graduating to some higher position. (There was also a third kind, the incompetent who quickly disappeared, but these were rare. The Fire Nation was apparently very careful in choosing those allowed contact with the prisoners.) Unlike the rats, physical size didn't seem to play much of a role in who stayed and who left. But those who didn't remain lowly prison guards, those who were promoted--there was a difference in them. As with the rats, they were more clever, or more ruthless, or both. These were the qualities that led to hushed conversations between the guards about how some former colleague had risen to become a general, or an admiral, or some other lofty position.

Finally, Hamma watched the other prisoners. They were the dullest group, by far. Many of them were obviously, like her, trying to figure out a way to escape. Others were still trying to convince the guards to let them go. And some had given up hope entirely, and only lived because there was no way for them to commit suicide. No matter what their outlook, though, their situation was the same--defeated and imprisoned.

Hamma watched all of them, people and animals alike, and considered her own situation carefully in light of what she saw. Her fellow prisoners were no help; if any of them had the ability to escape, they would have done so long ago. But the rats and the guards held a key. There were really only two sorts of people, Hamma decided: the powerful and the powerless. And the only way to gain power was through strength: brute physical force, or bending, or intelligence, or an iron will.

Hamma's strength was Waterbending, but it had been taken away from her. She would have to rely on her wits to find a way out of this situation. Ruthlessness would not be a problem; any compassion in her had been burned out by the Fire Nation long ago, and she was willing to do absolutely anything to get revenge. But what could she do, with no water around? They were isolated from rain or groundwater. The prison was kept cool, so they would not sweat, and the air was dry. The precautions around drinking water were so elaborate that there was no hope in breaking them. The only water they had was in their own bodies.

So how could that water be used? Hamma pondered this question for many weeks, and finally one day it all came together. She looked at the veins in her forearms. Watched one of the rats (one who'd fought his way to the top, the one she'd nicknamed San after her brother) scurry across the floor. And slowly, she smiled.

It took her eight agonizing years and far too many dead ends. Her first experiments, trying to pull water directly from the rats' blood, ended messily, and the guards, always suspicious, had kept a special eye on her for several months afterward. Then after they stopped, it was several more months before she could tempt the rats back to her cage. This time she tried control; it only worked during the full moon, and then only barely, but it was a ray of hope. She learned and relearned patience a million times. Slowly, painstakingly, she refined her technique. And finally, her hard work paid off, and the door of her cage swung open.

"What's going on?"

"Is that Hamma?"

"She's escaped!"

"How did she do it?"

"Hamma! Let us out too!"

The whispers were becoming increasingly frantic, but Hamma ignored them as she turned toward the exit. She knew the truth now: all that mattered was power, and who held it. Knowing this, she felt no pity for those who had been her fellow prisoners. They were just rats who were too small and stupid and weak to get food.

"If you can't get out yourselves, then you don't deserve freedom," she told them, and laughed in the shocked silence that followed. It was a sound she hadn't made in a long time.

The prisoners started talking again, begging her, offering whatever they could think of, but Hamma paid no further attention to their pleas. Step by quivering step, she walked into freedom, and left them all behind.

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:23:22 GMT

Grabbed from prelud :)

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and ~~strike through what you couldn't stand~~. * - Read more than once. (No underlinings because I'm not particularly looking for any of the unread books.)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22*
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion*
Life of Pi : a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey - Does it count if it was one of those prose retellings? Dunno; I'll bold it anyway.
Pride and prejudice - Can't remember if I've read this more than once or not.
Jane Eyre*
A tale of two cities
The brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies* - Really excellent book.
War and peace
Vanity fair
The time traveler's wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The kite runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great expectations
American gods*
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius - I don't care what this book is about, I refuse to read it with a title like that.
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
~~Memoirs of a Geisha~~
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West*
The Canterbury tales - Again the thing about not reading it in the original; though I memorized the first 14 lines or so like a good English student.
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man - Only got through this because I had to read it for class.
Love in the time of cholera - It's not that I disliked it, it's just that I checked it out when I was really in the mood for something else.
Brave new world
The Fountainhead - I still don't see what she was getting at.
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange*
Anansi Boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath - Was this the one with Lenny and whatshisface who liked furry things? ETA: Nope.
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility*
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's travels - This through no fault of my own; I don't think I've ever had a copy of it with the later parts with horse-people and stuff.
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune*
The prince
~~The sound and the fury~~
Angela's ashes : a memoir
~~The god of small things~~
A people's history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon*
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The scarlet letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves:
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud atlas
The confusion
Lolita - I really need to finish this; I read about 3/4ths of it in a bookstore and keep forgetting to pick it up again.
Persuasion*
Northanger abbey
The catcher in the rye
On the road
The hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down*
Gravity's rainbow
The Hobbit*
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield*
The three Musketeers

Guess I'm doing better than I thought I was literature-wise; I've read almost half of these, and I've heard of all but three or four.

Seven Random Facts meme

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:00:07 GMT

Writer's block continues apace, so have a meme :)

Seven Random Things about me (meme grabbed from a_t_rain)

1) I read the equivalent of about 2 1/2 paperbacks a day, and have since I was a teenager. (Less so, obviously, on days when I'm watching old episodes of a show or studying for one of my math-heavy classes, but those days don't come around that often.)

2) I'm a rather picky eater, though I've loosened up a bit as I've gotten older. Foods I have always disliked: macaroni and cheese, all breakfast foods with meat in them (unless it's seafood), eggs that are not hard-boiled or scrambled, most barbecue, cabbage, sandwiches (I like them more now, but would still rather pick them apart and not eat the bread), meatballs... the list goes on. I don't care much for fruit juice or soda either.

3) When I was about fifteen, I stuck my hand through the glass pane of a door trying to open it. I didn't cut anything important, thank God, but I do have a distinctive set of scars on my right arm.

4) I haven't combed my hair in over eight years.

5) Exactly 1/3rd of the wanks I've reported to the *_w communities somehow involved pedophilia. This perturbs me.

6) I've been to every continent bordering the Atlantic. (Well, except Antarctica.) I'd really like to go to Australia and some part of Asia to round out the set, but it hasn't happened yet.

7) The first person I ever had a crush on was Levar Burton.

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:22:27 GMT

Blaargh, haven't hardly written anything in a month or two. I completely lost my funny around June-ish, and while I think it's back, I'm a little tentative about finishing up any of my humor stuff. I'm in a perfect mood for writing angst, but I'm so sick of writing it. Maybe I should try for something fluffy instead--only I really don't have any good story ideas. ~~Prompt me?~~

In a somewhat more depressing turn, there's been a rather ugly race wank going around in HP fandom; the initial post laying out the issue is here, with more links here and even more links here. What I really hate about this kind of thing (I mean, apart from the stuff like people refusing to admit they accidentally made a mistake, and people attacking the messenger so they won't have to take responsibility, and people equating having sex with me with having sex with goats, wtf?, etc.), what I really hate is how hard it makes it to trust the people on my friends list.

I mean, I was lucky this time. None of the d_d mods and none of the people showing their backsides in the apology post are on my flist. But I was in HP fandom for two years, and I've always had an open friending policy. They weren't on my flist--but they easily could have been.

And I want to trust you guys. You all seem like cool people, and I'd like to think that if something like this came up you'd be able to deal with it like respectful and rational human beings. But I can almost guarantee that the people being dismissive and disrespectful and outright offensive in this wank had nothing in their LJs or the way they presented themselves that would tip anyone off. There is literally no way for me to tell whether any of you are that kind of person.

It just poisons the entire well. For me, fandom is about having fun, first and foremost. But I actively dread the day when something similar happens in a fandom I'm active in. Because then it'll be on my front stoop, and I may have to make some very painful decisions about people I thought I knew. Pretty much the exact opposite of fun :/ It's hard for me to think of leaving fandom forever-- but if I do, it'll probably be because of something like this.

I wish I could say I knew what kind of response I'll get to this post. But I really don't.

DH thoughts

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:22:10 GMT

My thoughts on Deathly Hallows As last time, I'm writing this without looking at anyone else's reactions first.

Well that was a bloodbath, wasn't it? (And dang, Jo, you must've been hella pissed at the Harmonians XD)

Things I liked:

It's pure gold: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. [...] You'd be surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either. Maybe I'm just a dirty old woman, but *sneeeerrrrkkkkk*

Kreacher!!!! And Dobby too! I wasn't sure exactly where Rowling was going with the whole house-elf thing, but I really, really like how she approached them here. The general house-elf situation still hasn't been solved to my satisfaction (as with a few other things as well), but of course that would require a whole nother book about the Ministry being put back together (and hopefully cured of most of their xenophobia)

Neville!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was made of win and awesome and more win and I love him and I badly want a book about everything he was doing over the year.

Snape. It's kind of funny, but even though this book had the two things I really, really didn't want for him (Snape dying, and him doing everything For Lily^TM), I didn't mind either of them too much. For the death, well, I knew in my heart of hearts that he was going to bite it, so being mentally prepared I could deal with it. (Though I did ceremonially chuck the book against the wall, as I promised some years back :P) For the Lily thing, for me, at least, it makes a big difference that he knew her before Hogwarts and that they were actual friends, as opposed to him having a creepy one-sided obsession with her. I know I'm a sap, but I really like that Harry named one of his kids after Snape too.

All the little wizarding traditions put in, though I wish she had included more of them in the other books as well.

Not something I *liked*, exactly, but I wasn't surprised that one of the twins bit it; I figured if any Weasley did, it would be either one of the parents or one of them. I COMPLETELY wasn't expecting Remus and Tonks, though. D:

Things I was meh on:

The whole Dumbledore-Grindlewald drama. I mean, it was fine for what it was, but why was it there? It didn't seem to connect to the rest of the story that well.

Dumbledore in general, actually. I was reading pretty fast, but a lot of Dumbledore's planning seemed to just be an elaborate Xanatos roulette. And for all his talk about how he'd learned how bad going for the greater good was... he seemed perfectly happy to screw around with the lives of Harry and Snape and God knows who else. Were we supposed to notice how hypocritical he was, or what?

Things I disliked:

WHY WAS EVERYONE RANDOMLY THROWING UNFORGIVABLES AROUND???????? OH, BUT I GUESS THEY'RE ONLY EVIL IF THE BAD GUYS ARE USING THEM, HUH? I MEAN, EVEN MCGONAGALL!!!! WTF!!!

The whole Goblin thing was another 'where is she going with this' subplot. Would've gone into the 'meh' category except for the copious use of Imperius and the planned double-cross, neither of which seem to have had any direct consequences.

Did Goyle really have to be so much of an idiotic troll? Sheesh, Joanne, lay off the dialects for once.

So did the Malfoys just get no comeuppance whatsoever, or what? I mean, Draco is my baby, and was underage for a good chunk of the book, but seems like Lucius, at least, should've been marched straight back to Azkaban.

Things I wondered about: (and recall that I'm writing this right after reading through for the first time, so it's quite possible some of these were answered and I just missed it)

I'd like to see a timeline for this book; was Tonks pregnant when she confronted Remus in HBP? If so, it certainly gives that scene a different tone. (Though even if she wasn't, obviously she and Remus were far further along than many people were arguing.

Let me see if I understand: when Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra at Harry in the forest, what he actually killed was the piece of his own soul and not Harry's, correct? And the second time, what exactly was going on? Voldie's got the Elder Wand, and Harry's got some other wand, right? So when the Elder Wand flew up in the air... why did that happen, and what exactly did the AK bounce off of to rebound off of Voldemort? Or am I just completely misunderstanding what was going on?

What did happened to all the Dementors?

And now to go off and catch up on all the discussions and wank I've missed.

ETA: Fifty new messages, and none of them with spoilers in the subject line. Did I really go through all that bother for nothing? DDD:

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:36:21 GMT

And a PSA, I suppose: the first 495 pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows leaked onto the internet yesterday. The remainder is expected to leak sometime tonight or tomorrow. There is word of organised efforts to spoil launch party lines, to broadcast spoilers over the Tannoy at shops (and airports? I doubt that one is true), and if you're a spoilerphobe, now would be a good time to limit your access to all mass media, not just the internet. In fact, I think fannish LJs are safer at this point than the streets in broad daylight, because most fen understand about spoilers.

Oh, crikey. I guess my total media fast starts now, and not Wednesday as I had been planning. See y'all Saturday afternoon, I guess; I've got one LJ-related commitment and a few games where I can easily avoid personal messages, but apart from that the Internet no longer exists for me. (And no release party either *shudders*)

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:21:50 GMT

Jetamors's Zanpakutō:

This zanpakutō, named Killer Widowmaker, transforms into a large, transparent jian with a blade a little wider than normal at Jetamors's command of "Butcher, Killer Widowmaker!" It reduces the opponent's speed by 10%.

What's Your Zanpakutō?

Excellent.

Ten recs in fandoms I don't normally read.

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:32:16 GMT

I was fandom-monogamous for a while, but over the last year or two I've learned to dip my toes in other waters. These are some of the things I've found.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Home is... by dharmavati. I like the movies okay, but not enough to dig into the fandom. But then I saw a rec for Tia Dalma/Davy Jones, and my curiosity got the better of me :) It's a really lovely story, and while it was written before AWE, it actually works with that movie pretty well.

Fullmetal Alchemist (anime): Good Intentions by ladylisse. I remembered her from HP fandom, and I found the summary intriguing, so I figured I'd give it a try. And OMG. I had my issues with the anime series, but if it had been resolved like this, I might've liked it even more than the manga. It's the sort of story that leaves me laughing and crying at the same time, and it's the sort of story that I'm always trying to write.

Samurai Champloo: Treatise on the Price of Sugar in the Edo Period by sintari. (Mugen/Fuu, btw.) What I really love about this fic is the description, of the surroundings, and of the characters' actions, and of Mugen's inner thoughts. It all comes together really well.

Silent Hill 2: Save Point: Hell is Repetition by Patrick Phelan. You don't actually have to know anything about Silent Hill to get this fic (I certainly don't); knowing about basic game mechanics is enough. Because game mechanics are what this story is really about, and it works *so* well.

Lord of the Rings: Thirteen Gifts for Thirteen Gardeners by Tulip Proudfoot. Towards the end of RotK, as Frodo is preparing to go to the West, he mentions the children that Sam and Rosie will someday have. This fic is set after Sam leaves; the children (now grown up) find a box with a letter and gift for each child. The characterization, fleshing out what we know of each character, is absolutely lovely, and the whole thing just has a very warm feeling. (There's some minor canon het, but the main focus is gen.)

Final Fantasy VII: Need by continuum. Occasionally, people writing 1sentence-type fics will try to make each sentence part of a story; this is the only one I've ever seen where it actually *works*. I'm usually not that into slash either, but I like the Reno/Rude here.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Welcome to the Slaughterhouse by beer_good_foamy. Rated NC-17 for violence; sometimes a gal's just in the mood for some over-the-top gore :) There's a bit of canon Willow/Tara too. Tara's family drags her back home; the Scoobies go after them, and, well... you can guess the rest. It's executed very well, though I think Buffy went down a little too fast for my tastes.

Beauty and the Beast (Disney): Picture This by TrudiRose. I think I kind of ship Gaston/Belle thanks to this fic; the romance is very believable, there are some awesome OCs once you get further in, and it was lots of fun spotting the places where events from the movie were mirrored. Belle's a bit offputting at the beginning, but this is addressed; the only quibble I had was that the triplets weren't rounded like the rest of the characters.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle: Wait For Me by Victoria Hughes. I tried looking for Sakura/Syaoran after reading TRC, but this was pretty much the only readable thing I could find. While it was written before the author got very far into the series, it doesn't really contradict anything. It meanders a bit more than I'd like, but the ending is spot-on perfect.

Avatar: Editing History by v_voltaire. An incomplete selection of Avatars removed from the history books. This is why I love 100-word drabbles. Because when people get it right, they get it *really* right.

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:05:21 GMT

The only good thing about my bizarre vacation sleep schedule is that I probably dodged zombification by virtue of being asleep. When I woke up, my brother was already fortifying the basement. We've piled as much stuff up the stairs as we can... if nothing else, it'll be an early warning signal. Of course, there's also the door leading to the back yard, but it's kind of hard to get into our back yard, and plus we pushed all the stuff that's too heavy to go up the stairs against it. They don't seem to have noticed us yet... every once in a while we hear footsteps upstairs, but that's about it. We had CNN on mute, but the satellite went out a while ago. I hope it was just our dish they destroyed and not the actual station.

The bad thing is that my idiot brother left my kitty cat upstairs. He's scared of strange people, so I'm hoping none of the zombies found him... I think tonight I'll probably sneak upstairs and put some food out for him, and get some food for us too. Not going to try to get him, of course--I'm not that dumb.

Dunno where our parents are. My dad works in the middle of the city, too, and he rides the Metro in to work. I'm not saying anything about it to my brother, of course, but it's not looking too good.

Crap--lights just flickered, and the wireless died for a second, so I think they might be targeting the power lines. Anyway, I just wanted everybody to know that I'm okay... me and my brother will probably be able to ride this thing out as long as they don't wait too long to rescue us.

Every Morning

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:51:22 GMT

Title: Every Morning
Rating: G
Summary: It's never easy to move to a new place; Chad's first few weeks in Karakura Town are no exception. Gen, ~900 words.
Notes: Thank you to shayheyred for looking it over!
______________________

On the first day, the day he arrived, Yasutora found Karakura Town very strange. It was different from his memories of Okinawa, and very different from Rosario. As he walked from the train station to his apartment, the faces of the people he passed were all closed, and everyone seemed to be perpetually hurrying.

The landlady in his new apartment had a squint, and she was missing the pinky finger of her right hand. She ushered him into her sitting room, cluttered with pictures of relatives and old friends, and trapped him there for a long time, alternately reassuring him that she would look after him like a mother and berating him for any future thuggish behavior. He struggled to follow her rapid-fire Japanese (he’d forgotten more than he thought, though it was coming back quickly), and tried to nod at the appropriate times. He arranged for the rest of his things to be sent to the apartment when they reached Japan, but it was still an eternity before he managed to break away.

His new apartment, when he finally got to see it, came furnished, but it still looked bare and unfinished. Yasutora unpacked his luggage, put away the clothes he’d brought with him, and hung his favorite poster over the bed. It helped, a little. He turned on the television and tried not to think about his grandfather.

Despite his best efforts, he dreamed about his grandfather that night. They were fishing, something Yasutora had never actually done. He pulled up a fish, but when he turned around his grandfather was no longer in the boat. Yasutora knew somehow that when he turned back to the fishing rod, his grandfather would be at the end of the line instead of the fish. And so he refused to look, trying to deny that horrible knowledge.

He woke up with tears on his face.

The first week in Karakura, nothing went right. He had trouble reading the signs, the shipping company couldn’t find his things, and everything in the shops was far too expensive. The language barrier didn’t help either. He’d say a few words and then stop, unsure whether he was speaking in Spanish or Japanese. When he rode the train up to the airport to the shipping company’s office, nobody would sit next to him. At night, he held the coin around his neck tightly, and tried desperately not to think. His dreams were still in Spanish.

One night, coming home from the train station, Yasutora passed the local temple just as they rang the evening bell. It was then that he realized that the sound he’d unconsciously been missing was the tolling of the church bells in Rosario. Japan didn’t seem to have any churches.

At the end of the week, his things finally came, but then he had a dozen boxes littering the small apartment.

The first day of the second week in Karakura was when he began school. Before it even started, he broke up a fight and met a boy with loud orange hair, named something like Strawberry. He looked mean, but seemed like a good person, and Yasutora started to feel a little less nervous.

School itself was just as confusing as he had feared, unfortunately. Yasutora took notes, half in romanji and half in kana, and rolled the words around in his mind during breaks until he could understand what they meant. Things weren’t completely bad, though. He was ready to eat alone at lunchtime, but the Strawberry boy waved him over. When the boys from the morning fight tried to ambush him after school, he spotted them in time, and took a different route back to the apartment.

That night, he dreamed about the mole on the inside of this mother’s left elbow. It was a dream he’d had before, and he was almost happy when he woke up.

He unpacked his guitar on the third day of the second week. The strings were in a horrible state, but it responded well enough after he tuned it. He strummed through the chords of some of the songs his grandfather taught him, slowly. With his eyes closed, they were almost together.

His dreams that night were of a white rabbit, which spoke to him. Though he didn’t know its language, he could understand it perfectly.

On the last day of the second week, Yasutora finished all of his unpacking. He visited the music store he’d seen on his way to school, where he ran into the orange-haired boy again. The boy—Ichigo—talked on and on about bands and guitar strings and the best fingerings for tricky transitions, scowling the entire time.

When he returned to his apartment, the landlady complimented him on his quiet habits and gave him a cup of soup to drink upstairs. It was very salty, and reminded Yasutora of the soup his mother used to make for him when he was sick. He didn’t dream at all that night, but woke up feeling particularly well-rested.

In the middle of the third week, Yasutora finally found a shop that sold the sort of loud, colorful shirts he liked to wear. He met some guys at the music store who were starting a band and needed a guitarist. He accepted, since it would give him something to do in the evenings. At school, he got back his first assignments, with fairly good marks.

At the grocery store, there were strawberries.

Yasutora still wasn’t sure if he’d ever be truly happy again. But he thought he was beginning to like Karakura.

Thu, 31 May 2007 05:16:32 GMT

Just a quick FYI for my flist:

I'm not planning to move at this time; if enough of my flist jumps I'll follow them, but that's not looking too likely unless LJ mass-bans fandom_counts or something equally stupid.

I did make a GJ just in case, and I've had a journal at JF for a long time now. If/when GJ goes back up I'll hopefully start searching for/friending y'all there.

Thu, 17 May 2007 23:36:17 GMT

Since everyone's doing it...

Name one character from any fandom I know and I will give you three facts about them from my personal canon.