At First Light

Mmm. Someone left a comment on my first Tenipuri fanfic last night, and it left me feeling oddly warm and fuzzy. That story is just a few months shy of three years old, and the writing is all over the place, and I hadn't really figured out the characters that well at the time, but it feels pretty special to me. (I kind of feel the same about my first Saiyuki fanfic, only I never finished that, and it's doomed to obscurity because I never dared crosspost it in part, though it still lurks around on my fic comm. It has equally patchy writing and I think the characters hadn't established themselves strongly in my mind, but I sort of love it anyway. It is another of my deformed offspring. >>) Going back to look at the fic when I got that comment gave me a sort of nostalgia...

Apart from anything else, I miss daring to just write things, without worrying about whether it'd be difficult or whatever other excuses I manage to come up with for not working on projects these days.

Yes, Pez, I know. Tarundoru.

Reveals are up on rikkai_exchange! It's totally done, wrapped up, posts have been edited to include author's names, etc. And I'm so relieved.

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Reveal time having arrived means I can own up to the fact that I wrote Moments of Grace (Sanada/Yukimura, Niou/Yukimura, NC-17), though I think everyone who actually read it and some people who didn't probably figured that one out anyway.

( A few comments on my fic and stuff )

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Things I especially enjoyed from this round, by the way, ( include... )

I promise there's plenty of stuff I didn't mention here which is worth reading or staring at! :)

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Incidentally, on a quick count-up, it seems as though Yagyuu and Niou pretty much ruled the exchange between them -- just counting stories/art where they were the main characters they accounted for almost half the submissions this time around. Last year Yanagi/Kirihara was second most popular but this year it's pretty much gone, and Sanada/Yukimura/Yanagi (which was somewhere around the same popularity as Yanagi/Kirihara) has more or less vanished too. Everything else is sort of ambling along at about the same levels. *laugh* A bit less AU.

And we're done.

Thank you all. *__*

livelongnmarry has been being mentioned a lot on my flist lately! (The profile info explains better than I can if you somehow haven't heard of it yet.) A few people on my friendslist are doing things, although I'm already completely losing track... most recently I know crystalusagi is offering web design and hosting and yuki_scorpio is offering Rikkai plushes of unreasonable cuteness. I own a Niou and he's awesome.

Crystal is also trying to make me take part, which I am absolutely not averse to in principle (and I'm thinking about things I could do), but her ideas are insane. I'm just saying. Sane ideas on the back of a postcard to, well... here, I guess. (I'm sort of ruling out offering fanfiction even though that's basically The Thing that I do for fandom because honestly, me writing on demand? Sometimes it works out fine. Sometimes.)

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Yesterday, we went to the Blue John Cavern near Castleton. Our tour-guide was one of those characters who you possibly couldn't make up; they pop up in fiction sometimes, of course, but I maintain they're all based on real people. Possibly all on the same real person. He just gets around a bit. He wears suspicious sweaters and is prone to making completely politically incorrect comments in an extremely goodnatured manner. There is often an air of flatcap about him, even if he isn't actually wearing one.

Anyway, I really enjoyed going around the mine; if you're not averse to deep dark places and quite a lot of steps, I recommend it. Wear shoes with a good grip. *g*

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My current fic project is actually going pretty well now, although standard doubts and angst apply. Last push this weekend.

Also on the subject of fic etc., rikkai_exchange is pretty far through now and there's loads of stuff to read/stare at! Just saying. :)

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Off to pack now. Back to London in a few hours. (I think I just traumatised one of the Daves by being Very Awake at him despite not having had any tea yet.)

Writing is slow and I need to keep some forward momentum with putting words together while I do research for bigger projects.

Feel free to request stuff. Prompt + characters or pairing. I have many fandoms, and also I write in RP-verses. (I mean this for anyone who has gamed with me in the past or anyone who would like totally random fic set in the world of one of the tabletop RPs you know I know, like Exalted or Shadowrun or whatever else.) Cutesy romantic things are not my strong point. You should know this by now, I guess. AU welcome for Tenipuri or Saiyuki especially.

( List )

I'm taking a list of prompts and a notebook to the airport, I think... help appreciated. No promises about quality or anything else. *g* (This weekend = Berlin trip. You know, I've only been to Germany before either in passing or for a music festival. There was this one very damp weekend spent in a tent on the outskirts of Hildesheim, but...)

...also the thought of Hakkai being obsessed with details of anatomy - thinking of movements in terms of the way bones and muscles shift, looking at facial structure as a product of the underlying bones, stuff like that - is playing around in my mind again. Possibly I used it in a story long ago, but I'd have to go back and re-read my old Saiyuki stuff to find out and I'm not sure I have the nerve. But basically, one day there should probably be a story about Hakkai titled The Skull Beneath The Skin or something equally predictable. In it he can really, really obsess over death, as a process. The technical side of things, if you will. I have various other ideas. If you're lucky I will never get around to writing them. Yes, of course I have read the PD James book of the same name. Erm.

Anyway, it's horribly self-inserty, given my profession and area of specialisation and the way it alters my view of the world. Though, I think that's okay if it's also IC for the character in question. Fanfiction is inherently self-indulgent anyway, I suppose, to some degree or other.

A lot of things I write in fandom have various bits of myself in them and I don't think that's a bad thing. Is it?

Curiosity makes me ask: how much of yourself do you think comes through in your stories? What sorts of things? Do you like or dislike adapting things that have happened to you or quirks possessed by you or people around you to fit characters? How much is too much?

And why is the a cat sitting on top of the (computer) mouse?

Some of life's greatest mysteries... (Oh, wait. The answer to that last one is because I refused to feed her so she's pointedly sulking at me. Even though she has eaten, having stolen a quantity of lasagne in the early hours of the morning.)

-- I do not have anything complete to offer for Yukimura's birthday. I am very ashamed of this fact; but instead I am giving you... a teaser? *g*

This fic idea is basically Pez's bastard brain-child which she disowned at birth and left on my metaphorical doorstep with a note instructing me to look after it. It's AU, and it's about Rikkai as the young and wealthy who have too much time on their hands. Improbable as that sounds. I was ordered to write it as my atonement for... past sins, which I cannot divulge at present but which were severe. I have to write less-than-absolutely-serious porn. Apparently then Yukimura might forgive me. I'm not convinced that'll be all it takes, personally.

And of course, some people may consider this a sin in and of itself. :D Pairings are... Niou/Yukimura, Sanada/Yukimura, Yagyuu/Niou, and possibly others. It's called Pleasurewood Hill (also on orders from Pez). It's not the most worksafe thing you will ever see. Really.

( 800 words of fic here - Niou/Yukimura, Yukimura pervs on Sanada )


-- More things to kill time; the letter game thingy. Get given a letter, list ten things beginning with that letter which you like, other people may request a letter from you. Etc. tokyostory gave me N.

( N is for )


-- Dexter is on ITV, it seems. ^^

1. Sarah, thanks for the tea! :D Awesome. :) :)

2. ☆ The Fanficcers Love Meme ☆ or something. There's been so many meme things around I just started ignoring them but... *shrug* I guess I am still weak. Hah. :D

3. Last night I dreamed that Tieria murdered Lockon. Uh? Okay. I remember thinking "huh, I was right," but I have no idea what I thought I was right about.

Good morning, everyone. *crawls off to watch more TTGL before settling down to be Serious*

Unni has been making me do Bad Things again. Behold: Saiyuki/Discworld crossover fic-snippet. (PG)

As I understand it, the idea is that I have to write a little bit of fic each day for advent. I'm sure Unni will poke me with determination until this happens. XD;; So yeah, here is your piece for the 1st of December!

I will be over here, hiding from Sanzo.