The Blog

Oh bloody hell, CLAMP...

Why must you insist on breaking my heart with every new volume?

(Someone just read tsubasa volume 20)

Labels: damn you CLAMP, manga, tsubasa

Owning Up...

So, I'm at home today, enjoying my last real day off uni and wondering where the hell everyone else has gone to. I'm still sickly, but am working on it by spending all day in my pyjamas and otherwise lazing around. I suppose I ought to update everyone at this point by linking to all the fanfiction I've written in the last month, just in case you want to keep up with that:

• Yuletide: Spilling Milk and Falling Stars (Tokyo Babylon) - written for Kenshinzen's request for a Supernatural crossover. I haven't seen more than a few episodes of SPN, so I couldn't write that as the primary story as requested, but I did my best at sneaking the boys into the background of the story for them. No word back from Kenshinzen, but I'm sure they'll eventually tell me they loved the gift I worked for so many days on. Anyway, this is a fairly basic Tokyo Babylon fic about Subaru, Hokuto and Seishirou as a family, going for lunch and fortune-telling.
• Yuletide treat: Roly-Poly Boxbot (Gunnerkrigg Court) - written for Iseult Variante's throwaway line about a Boxbot story in her request. It's terrible, but then so's Boxbot. I wrote this one while Tony was napping before James' mum's Christmas party, but it was just too much fun.
• PHYS2512: Suddenly Silenced (Star Wars) - written for Sarah, who didn't have particulars in her requests. I'm not sure why, out of a list of many fandoms and with all the freedom in the world, all I could finish was Alderaan blows up fanfic, but that's how it works sometimes. I really love this story, it's probably the best-written story I've done this month, and I wrote it all in longhand before typing it up.
• PHYS2512: The Early Flamingo Catches The—What Do Flamingoes Eat Anyway? (The West Wing) - CJ's morning routine, written for Kat. I couldn't quite decide on a particular period of the show to write in, other than pre-series 6, and my American politics is sketchy at the best of times, but I love CJ, and something about this voice appealed to me. I'm surprised at how well it all came together.
• PHYS2512 bonus: Hermione's Revolution (Harry Potter) - written for Sarah, since no one deserves nothing but a depressing story for Christmas, and I'd started this one first. For some reason I had trouble finding the rest of this story, basically everything after she gets into Dumbledore's office, but with a little bit of help from Rinkle I got it done only a little bit late. :)

Phew, that's a surprising number of words, all of them for fandoms I haven't really written before (I know I've done SW, but never the OT for some reason. I tend to write in the Old Republic, for better or worse). Now all I have to do is get myself back to writing in the past tense.

I found this snippet of what I had called Tachikoma Diaries when I was deleting the old draft blog posts. I ought to write more of this, as it's cute and I want a pet tachikoma. I think it was a vague idea for last year's yuletide fic.

"Monday: v. v. unhappy. Batou gave natural oil to noisiest of Tachikoma thinking it was me again. I know our memories are synchronised every night but how he can believe that thing when it says its his favourite is beyond me. Lonely and miserable and wishing noisiest of Tachikoma be blown up in next action."

I think I need to read Bridget Jones before going on with that though. *grins*

Labels: 1000 words, damn you CLAMP, fanfiction, Gunnerkrigg Court, Harry Potter, I am a fanfic whore, I don't want to live on the moon, star wars, tachikoma, the west wing, Tokyo Babylon, writing, yuletide

 Trying to Post Regularly...

I had a train of thought, but then I lost it...

I ordered the final set of the CLAMP in 3-D land toys this morning. They might arrive before Christmas if I'm lucky: one more present to open. :) I might even catch up on photographing them then.

I've got a draft of my yuletide fic, but I really dislike it and will be either scrapping it or doing a full rewrite tonight. I've only got three days to go, eep!

I've also realised I have entirely too many "draft" posts in blogger, usually consisting of a link that I intend but never manage to post at a later moment. So I'm going through the vault to see what can be rescued and posted over the next couple of days.

• "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek" - a terrible song by The Go Go's, who apparently never grasped the finer points of grammar. One wonders if that was any influence on their "success". (Also, it means I get to use my 'daleks' tag again. I don't even remember why I have that.)
• DDR: The Musical - I love the idea of this so very much, even if the reviews say it's crap and the pictures are pretty WTF, because shitty Japanese techno makes me happy.
  (Curiously, the thought of an actual revolution through dance brings back bad memories from reading "The Worst Band in the in Universe"--GBase, I love everything you do, but that book was lame.)
• Bee Gees keep you Stayin' Alive - Heh, it turns out the song is just right for CPR, and you're more likely to save someone if you sing along in your head.

Labels: christmas, daleks, damn you CLAMP, DDR, Graeme Base, long live the revolution, miscellany, music, random, yuletide

Fanfiction Update...

Since the reveal happened over at x2009, I can finally link to the story I wrote. I'm told that it's readable even if you don't know X (X/1999) since I was my usual vague self in not giving character names or really explaining what's going on.

Title: From Whence We Have Fallen
Rating: PG

Characters/Pairing: Subaru Sumeragi

Warnings: Descriptions of the nuclear blast at Hiroshima and recollections of canon violence.

Author's note: Thanks to Drew for betaing this.
Summary: The Japanese built to withstand earthquakes. Subaru reflects on those things that remain.

( And in Babylon was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth. )

Labels: damn you CLAMP, fanfiction, from whence we have fallen, japan, Tokyo, writing, X

  Dear Authors...

I present first this comic.

Then I point out that the fantasy novel I'm currently reading has 300 pages of young-adult prose, and 100 pages of glossary/encyclopaedia/appendices. Not even the vaguely dickensian setting is enough to fully redeem it.

ALSO: if your monsters are 'bogles', do not have your protagonist 'boggle' while talking about them.

***

In other news, I somehow got my story for x2009 done in the nick of time.

And the CLAMP in 3-D land series 7 figures arrived. Will photograph them at some point.

Labels: books, damn you CLAMP, fantasy, monster blood tattoo, steampunk, toys, writing

   Catherine in 3-D land, series 2...

Still no scarf post, because I am oh so lazy about such things. Or maybe just too busy doing everything else, which also seems likely. Anyway, I got more toys in the mail today, and here is my lazy montage of photos, now with even less narration:








Also: Woo for Safari on windows! And also for Heroes puppets (spoilers for season one), which are love.

Labels: damn you CLAMP, heroes, montage, send me love

   Catherine in 3D-land...

This morning I woke to the doorbell ringing, which could only mean one thing: my package from Singapore had arrived! And lo, it was good: Yup, that is my mailing address, in case people want to send me love (or presents, I'm good with either). *grins* But what's important is these guys used real stamps to post mail, which is awesome! I have to soak them off and put them in my lack of a stamp album on the weekend.

Of course, who really cares about the packaging, when there are toys inside?! And bubblewrap!
So then there were packets to be opened! And toys to be played with! I suppose I ought to point out that these are the CLAMP in 3D-LAND (someday, CLAMP, I will understand your random capitalisations) Series 1 figures, and that I also have 2 of the Series 2 figures that Charles picked up in Japan for me a few weeks ago. Because he's awesome like that, and in fact it was seeing the detail on the Series 2 toys that made me want to collect the whole set. So, thank you, dude! Anyway, on to the photo!

Whee! Look at all those little guys (they're named on the flickr page, if you don't recognise them)! They're really well made, and absolutely gorgeous (particularly Syaoran from CCS, though you can't quite see him in this picture). The detail is amazing - for example Yuuko's kimono sleeves have little flowers painted on them in two tones, Chii's eyes make it clear that she's downloading something and Syaoran's Clow Card has Jump (the pink rabbit next to him) painted on it. I love them all. Not to mention Tsubasa's Syaoran and Sakura look great together.

I brought Chii and Yuuko in to uni with me today in the hopes of finding them a real home around here, but sadly I don't think they're going to stay.

Oh, and for the record, today's chibi is Hikarino Miko as one of the legendary Magic Knights. The costume design belongs to Brendan, who drew an awesome picture for me one day when I was particularly conflicted as to who I love more: CLAMP or Naoko Takeuchi (I think most of the time CLAMP wins, but don't tell Naoko-sama that).

Labels: anime, damn you CLAMP, manga, send me love, toys