Flutterings

(1) meretricula's
four reasons Roger Federer wished the Japanese Davis Cup team would fall into a really deep hole (and one reason they weren't that bad after all). Tennis RPS / Prince of Tennis crossover, 2800 words, absolutely hysterical, and with mentions of the Spanish Davis Cup team as well. Its opening lines:

To be fair, Roger actually liked playing Echizen. The kid was good, he was getting better all the time, and the stretch of trying to beat him was satisfying. The problem was that whenever he played Echizen, he would almost inevitably have to talk to Echizen, and as soon as the brat started speaking Roger felt an extremely uncharitable urge to punch him in the mouth. Since Echizen was seventeen years old and less than five and a half feet tall, Roger thought that this might be problematic for his reputation.

(2) There's a teacher in Nevada seeking donations in order to purchase a gyotaku (rubber fish) printmaking set for her students.

(2a) The anonymous donor from LJ's fandom-of-one comm is still making contributions to charity in honor of New Year's Resolution fic. She or he donated $5 to the rubber fish project in honor of Deserving. This has made me ridiculously happy, as did his/her earlier donation to a tennis-equipment-for-kids project (now fully funded) in honor of Interrobang.

(2b) [blatant hinting] There are still 3625 prompts up for grabs at the Yuletide archive. You do not have to be a previous participant to play. You do not claim a prompt - you simply submit the story when it is done. (You do have to write the story specifically for NYR, and it has to be 1000 words minimum.) The open prompts currently include one for Harudaki (*cough* - yeah, it's mine) and others for Three Investigators, Bujold, the a-ha "Take on Me" video, and a bajillion manga/anime titles I've never even heard of...

So, so tired, and yet more middle-of-the-night bug-chasing anticipated. On the plus side, having to be on standby online all damned day resulted in some catching up via e-mail (which in turn resulted in some rearranging of my language-study plans -- it turns out I'll be attending a wedding in Israel this fall, so Hebrew just leapfrogged over Mandarin. I'm loving the library's Pimsleur CD series, by the way...) and the writing of a New Year's Resolution fic:

Title: Deserving
Fandom: Haru wo Daiteita
Characters: Yoshizumi, Iwaki, and Katou
Rating: PG
Summary: "What the hell am I in the middle of now?" Yoshizumi doesn't know what to think when he lands a starring role opposite Katou's Iwaki.
Wordcount: 1054
Written for: glass-icarus, who had specified that "possessiveness is a giant thing for me; thus, obviously, when I mentioned Yoshizumi, I didn't mean a threesome. :P Katou and Iwaki being sweet are fabulous, Yoshizumi calling them out on it is also fabulous, Yoshizumi poking fun at them or talking to them about their relationship (in passing or not), any combination of the three of them bonding over acting..."
Link: http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/87/deserving.html
(I'll repost in this journal in a couple days or so - the file's on another machine)

* * *

( twenty first lines meme: arguably spoilers for FAKE and Haru below the cut )

Patterns? Um... That I tend to write longer sentences than most of you is probably not news (*waves at westernredcedar, who wrangled with this firsthand when she recorded "The Hounding of the Baskervilles"*). That I often start out stories with characters in media thinkety is likewise Not A Revelation. Beyond that... aaah. At the moment I wouldn't be able to recognize a Fibonacci sequence if it smacked me with a slide rule. I think it's time to go check on my cauldron of tomato stew and then either kick a sonnet closer to shape or succumb to another two-hour catnap.

Today's subject line comes from a poem by Hafiz that begins, "Admit something: / Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'"

142 words today on Not as Dumb. With yet another OC ambling in from left field.

geri_chan's comment detailing which dog breeds correspond to various Harudaki characters -- I have no words, because I am still laughing too hard to come up with them.

Read scans of Vassalord v3 yesterday, and my print copy of Yellow v1. Also came across scans of a manga titled Welcome to the Chemistry Lab. Who knows if it's any good, but with a title like that, of course I'm going to peek at it at some point.

The Talking Library shares a parking lot with a County Clerk branch, which means the congestion's impossible the last and first business day of each month (when people queue up to renew their car tags), so it turned out to be the perfect morning for a 6.5-hour shift: the first two hours were devoted to the Tennessean (which is fading right before our eyes -- the editorial section is literally half of what it was, and at least one funeral home lists its website in lieu of actual obituary details for its clients), and the rest to wrapping up The Red Necklace, which added up to twenty episodes (roughly twenty pages per half-hour).

The to-do list is reproaching me, but I am heading to bed anyway: I don't think I've caught the latest whats-it that knocked out at least three members of the chamber choir over the weekend, but I am definitely inordinately achy and out of sorts, in spite of copious quantities of both sleep and dried squid over the past forty-eight hours (in spite of being relatively well-behaved the forty-eight hours before -- I stayed in Friday night to work on a business tax return, and haven't touched any alcohol since Wednesday). I'm hoping more sleep and orange juice and Greek yogurt will do the trick...

Chouette! ;-)

Banner by livia penn. Click for info about the halfamoon 2009 femfic fest.

Title: Bonsai
Fandom: Haru wo Daiteita (Embracing Love)
Character: Shimizu
Words: 100
Challenge: halfamoon 2009, day 1

( spoilers through chapter 49 )

So, reckoning up my Saturday (which involved very little of what I'd ought've done... *sheepish*)...

total hours of sleep: six, maybe (three in the morning and three more as a crash-nap)

medications: inhaler, cough drops, Empress Afternoon tea

poems accepted: two
poems rejected: four
poems (re)submitted: eleven

wordcount so far for Not As Dumb part 3: 269. Not for lack of dwelling on it -- it's just not jelling yet. *grumpf*

Harudaki drabble-plot conceived and later discarded: 1 (on the phrase Mi o mochikuzusu, which is idiomatic for "His immoral life led him to ruin" but literally reads "He let his body go to the dogs," which was giving me ideas for Mochimune vs. Onozuka snarkage)

Number of times I thought of Yoshizumi during tonight's Noh performance: dozens
(the troupe is based in Kyoto; the lead dancer is the same one pictured in this flyer for the show in Memphis next Monday - Nashville was the second stop on their three-city tour)

Other people's poems recently read and/or revisited:

Meghann Marco, WTF Sestina

Lafayette Wattles, I Couldn't Tell Which Were The Thoughts And Which Were The Trees

Scott Owens, January Looks Forward and Back, Feeds the Stove October's Wood, Saves the Ashes for April's Garden

Tony Hoagland, Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet

And, one of the poems I read late last night was Charles Olson's "A Newly Discovered Homeric Hymn" (1955), which freaked me out just enough that I intend to inflict it upon the rest of you as a voicepost soon (because, y'know, that whole thing about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable... *friendly evil smile*). (But seriously, it's not so much its subject matter - I mean, the Wattles poem hurts way, way more -- but something about the sounds of the Olson poem connected with something in my gut, and while it's not why I couldn't get back to sleep after 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning, it's probably poking at the phantom ribs of my subconscious when I'm not looking. And speaking of getting to bed -- oy.)

From 1804 renovations

From 1804 renovations

From 1804 renovations

Would any of you lot be interested in a handful of Chinese pattern magazines from the early 1970s? I'm willing to ship them gratis to anywhere in North America (overseas airmail has gotten too pricey, sorry).

---

Still coping with the Bronchitis of Doom Revisited, which means delays in dealing with everyday life, which correspondingly means delays in making progress on audiofics, "Not As Dumb," care packages, reading the bajillion-word backlog of fics y'all have been building up in my bookmarks, etc. All in good time. I do have a handful of quick recs before I head back to the de-stashing:

A Night In by currently anon. Fandom: The Dark Is Rising. Will/Jane/Bran. Three friends coping with Midsummer heat. A mix of potential hurt-comfort and massive UST leading to... Jane's POV; beautiful characterization.

Geri-chan started posting Haru wo Daiteita fic in November, primarily about Kikuchi. Some really thought-provoking examinations of the dynamics among the characters and about their careers.

Cartography by penknife. Fandom: A Little Princess. A beautiful, thoughtfully narrated piece from Ram Dass's point of view.

Little Settlement on the Moon by Rina. Fandom: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. busaikko-san, I am looking at you.

A Willow/Squid/Whomping Willow drabble by drusillas_rain. Fandoms: BtVS/HP. *glee*

Escaping Gravity by misura. Fandom: Vorkosigan. Ivan/By. Mostly with Miles', ah, assistance, but Gregor gets the last word. *glee*

I'll Find You In the Morning Sun by rilla. Fandom: Angels in America. Beautiful, insightful, heartbreaking, real.

Commonplaces by astolat. Fandom: Sherlock Holmes. Holmes/Adler. Irene's POV. Fine characterization and dynamic.

(1) Note to self: when you are doing your best take of Plath's "The Beekeeper's Daughter," it helps to have the mic on. *facepalm*

(1a) An aside to the rest of y'all: I'm doing a series of poetry readings as a giftie to red_day_dawning over at red_day_love. (No author tag yet, but clicking the mp3 tag should filter 'em for you.)

(1b) Some of you should also check out the comm because of torino10154's sweet, short Snupin-lets.

(2) Fic rec: geri_chan's Kentucky Fried Christmas (Haru wo daiteita). Spot-on characterization and a nice read on Christmas in Japan.

(2a) Mini-Christmas Romance fest currently on at youka_nitta.

(3) I'd hoped to finish at least one more treat for the Yuletide fest (not linking at the moment because of server congestion), but between work and church obligations, it's looking less than likely. Ah well. Considering the fandom in question had less than a half-dozen participants (out of over 1600) offering to write for it, odds are it'll be available as a New Year Resolutions prompt, and if it's not, I can always write it as a non-fest fic if the bunny's still alive and kicking after the reveal.

(3a) Besides, I've posted four full-length stories already. What can I say? So much shiny...

(4) Very few people come specifically to Nashville for its own sake, but it happens to be on the way to many other places, which is lovely: Monday night, an old flame on his way to Georgia treated me to a glass of hard cider at the Three Crow Bar, and yesterday two friends from New Orleans came by with satsumas, which was cause a-plenty to gather around my momentarily-cleared dining-room table with a bottle of 21 year old Glengoyne (marvelous) and a packet of Planets (meh). Good times. :-)

Onwards! *blows dark chocolatey kisses at all y'all*

Nineveh-uk has posted another bit of Sayers-inspired brilliance, this time featuring Bunter and tissue-paper. Work-safe.

---

Marginalina linked to the Yuletide brainstorming post; I clicked. That crashing sound you hear in the background is my resolve to stay out of fests this year colliding with the possibility of prompting some good FAKE fic. More on that in a sec.

My original shortlist + runners-up is on page 7 of the comments therein, but I had a three-hour drive earlier today, which meant I had time to ponder what I really want. So the fandoms I currently plan to nominate are looking more like this:

1. FAKE - Sanami Matoh
2. Haru wo Daiteita - Youka Nitta
3. Copenhagen - Michael Frayn
4. Muppets
5. Chicago Manual of Style
6. Vicky Bliss - Elizabeth Peters

Some thoughts (in reverse order) on fic I'd like to see, whether via Yuletide or some other panfandom challenge or me-writing-it-myself-during-some-future-bout-of-insomnia (and yes, this is partly so I don't forget all this when it's time to write my "Dear Yuletide Santa" letter -- although it'll definitely need trimming so as not to scare whomever's assigned to me out of her or his gourd). I guess I should cut for spoilers for some of these...

( 6. Vicky Bliss )

5. CMOS - oh, the possibilities. CMOS/MLA bondage or hatesex, CMOS/APA, two CMOS rules together, one single CMOS rule... mwahahahahaha. I really am not kidding when I say that 17.169 would lend itself nicely to an extended exploration of UST.

4. Muppets. Heh. Coming up with potential guest-stars (which may or may not violate the "no crossovers" guideline - I'm just brainstorming here) was a welcome mental break. Possibilities, in rough order of preference:

anyone from Tenth Doctor Who or Torchwood (actor or character)

Cthulhu or Hastur from User-Friendly (and dudes, current storyline involves the Large Hadron Collider. Whee!)

anyone from Haru wo Daiteita

anyone from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series

Lord Peter Wimsey. Bonus for scenes showing Bunter dealing with the insanity

Irene Adler

Jonathan Papelbon

3. Copenhagen. More discussion and/or flashbacks among those involved.

2. Haru wo Daiteita: Yoshizumi or Shimizu gen; Iwaki/Katou PWP...

1. FAKE - some possibilities:

Ryo/Dee hurt/comfort

Dee and Jim Campbell friendship fic

Ryo's early twenties - answering questions from Dee, Carol, and/or Bikky about his time in the Army (if that's what he did), or Dee mulling over how Ryo's Army habits/skills show up in his current habits, or how Ryo met his bomb-making friend (if it wasn't via the Army)

Ryo and Dee discuss and compare their knowledge of bombs

Kai and/or Louise (second season) - what are their stories?

The 27th precinct heads to Bikky and Carol's wedding. Craziness and crises meet them there.

( second season spoiler )

( And now for the mini-manifesto... my personal preferences re: FAKE fic )
Ok, that's more than I meant to say... and I'm not done yet. Some other day. The to-post list also includes a delightful German translation of "Those I Can Save" (courtesy of LJ:incapability87), a couple of audiofics (once I stop coughing long enough to record them), some recs of FAKE fics (especially ones not in the usual archives), and the ever-floating raft of to-writes (once they're written, heh). But for now it's back to the comma mines. *hugs to all who wants 'em*

Fics written in the universe of Haru wo Daiteita (Embracing Love), a manga series by Youka Nitta.

( Read more... )