Usually I'm pretty good at keeping myself to one major WIP per fandom at a time. In the last six months, however, I've fallen headlong into the trap of starting half a dozen different things at once but never getting very far with any of them, leaving me with a folder full of beginnings and very little to show for it, and all the while getting increasingly despondent about how miserably little fic I've posted this year. This is all by way of saying that this is not the next chapter of my vampire-fic (which is mostly complete but is still in need of betaing etc) – it is in fact the prologue to that would-be-epic idea I mentioned way back when and have had sitting around ever since. The rest of this story is still very much on my to-do list (at this point it's not even to the stage where the summary really applies to it), but in the meantime, the prologue stands alone well enough that it felt like past time to share it.

(To the one or two of you with whom I've discussed the concept behind this one before, I did just want to ask you not to mention it in the comments, as it's going to be a pretty major spoiler for later in the fic.)


Title: Skin and Bone
Summary: Ky's about to find out just how deceptively human Gears can be.
Chapter: Prologue
Characters/Pairing: (eventual) Sol/Ky
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1200

( Sol was in the way. )

Oh don't look at me like that, I know I've even covered this one already, but I have a good excuse, honest!

The degree to which this one is velithya's fault is slightly debatable - she's responsible for putting the idea in my head (it did originate from what was probably an innocent case of mishearing, but she is completely guilty of egging me on well after the mistake was cleared up), but I have no-one but myself to blame for the horrible realisation later that the parallels between Gears and Vampires work just a little too well for comfort. I mean, not only are both particularly nasty monsters that can generally pass for humans when not out hunting them (though they may also be capable of sprouting some various assortment of fangs/claws/maybe even batwings when the opportunity arises), both have their own convoluted way of converting humans into their own kind, not to mention a solid history of producing a member or two willing and capable of controlling the animalistic bloodlust within well enough to want to side with the humans. And what's that organisation dedicated to eradicating the Gears called again? Oh yeah, the Holy Order. They probably hand all their soldiers their own crucifix along with the uniform - they're all set for hunting vampires and I haven't even had to change more than a couple of nouns on the charter.

(I would start constructing elaborate conspiracy theories about whether Ishiwatari really meant to create a race of evil vampires rather than Gears in his very first draft, but that would be me getting way too carried away.)

Anyway, having given in to the inevitable, I resigned myself to turning out at least a smutty little one-parter based on the above, mixed with every vampire-related cliche I could think of in a hurry (look, if you're going to write fic based on an idea as cliched as a vampire!AU, you have to do it properly). Naturally, this turned into two scenes plus a morning-after-bit, and then the intro wasn't working so well so that turned into an extra bit as well, bringing the total up to a full four parter when I wasn't looking. I'm not even surprised when this happens anymore.

FTR, the added irony of writing a vampire AU when one of the playable characters in the source material was a vampire to being with is not lost on me. And if you think you've caught a whole lot of gratuitous references to every piece of popular vampire-related fiction to emerge in recent years in the writing to follow, it's probably not just you.


Title: Sign of the Cross (a.k.a. the Completely Gratuitous Guilty Gear Vampire AU)
Summary: Gears or vampires, it's all just another day's work for the Holy Order. But they never do quite manage to screen some of their more unusual recruits as carefully as they ought to either.
Characters/Pairing: Sol/Ky
Chapter: 1 of 4
Rating: Eventually NC-17, but only PG for this part
Word Count: 2760

( Having Ky show up in his room like that when Sol was half-asleep and hungry made him want to do all sorts of things that could get him thrown out of the Order, and punching Ky was only the least of them. )

Here I am, innocently trying to make headway with the WIP list from hell, and what happens? The Wolverine movie throws me headfirst into my annual Marvel-binge, and a week or two of inhaling comics at a dangerous rate later, I'm posting Cable/Deadpool fic instead.

Er. Oops?

Actually, considering how many times this year I've been derailed by stuff a whole lot less enjoyable, I'm not really complaining. The whole Cable&Deadpool series was awesome fun, after all. =3 And I'm, like, this close to being able to whittle a couple of things of that WIP list now, honest! Just don't ask about the Life on Mars/Dr Who crossover taking up twenty pages of my notebook.

The Marvel-binge thing actually does look like it's becoming a bit of an annual tradition, which is to say the same thing happened to me last year after Iron Man came out (only focused around the Iron Man/Avengers/Captain America titles that time, rather than 'anything with Deadpool'. And just as much velithya's fault, if not more so). Not much precedent from before that, unless you count my DC fling from back in '04 (Young Justice! <3), but given the number of movies Marvel's supposed to have in the works right now... yeah, if the standard keeps up, plenty of time for this to make tradition-status yet.

They're a funny old medium, Western Comics - as good a practical example of Sturgeon's Law as you could ask for, but the 10% (or 5%, or however you cast it) out there that is worth reading can be a damn good way to waste a few afternoons.

My personal backlog of things I meant to post but never got around to is now so long it's long since become a matter of great personal embarrassment. Case in point: when I first finished playing The World Ends With You, I got halfway through a really extended critique/fangirling over it's various elements before I got distracted (possibly by a trip to Japan, possibly by a million and one cosplay projects, possibly by roughly the same number of writing projects, possibly even by the terror of starting a PhD or something similarly trivial). Anyway, excuses aside, the point is I still have three WEWY fic to post (as soon as my beta reader gets back to me), and a whole heap of photos taken in Shibuya to share (as soon as we get them all cleaned up), but in the meantime, getting this bit out of the way has to be a good start.

In brief, I loved it! The battle system, despite being confusing at first and often best handled by button mashing, is surprisingly fun after a little practice, the characters are all impressively developed and likeable – including most of the badguys, and the plot’s every bit as the involving as the best of Squeenix's work. The game gets a big tick in pretty much every box.

So it’s a real shame that the ending... kinda sucked.

( A whole lot more discussion about that ending problem, spoilers galore )

( Just to prove how very carried away I'm getting here, alternate ending pseudo-fic! Complete with emote icons! )

( Okay, now that's all over with, back to the stuff I *did* like about the game (ie, *everything* else) )

Some weeks you would swear the world sees you coming: case in point, I was this close to having this fic posted last week - right up until I got hit with a stomach bug you do not want the details of, and which left me still feeling out of it for the best part of a week. On the upside, my new laptop arrived! But had the choice there been one of those either-or-both things, I would have happily just waited another week or two for the laptop. -_-

Title: The Lost Boys
Summary: Order Commander Sol, Jellyfish Captain May, and the harsher realities of a world without much left to lose.
Characters: Sol, May, Potemkin
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3200
Notes: Not only have I gone and written Guilty Gear fic which isn't all about Sol and Ky, it's Side Red/Side Black AU fic which isn't all about Sol pining after and Ky. Y'know, just for a change (and 'cause there really is a lot to explore in that AU as soon as you start thinking about it). This started way back when that 'what else do you ship' post went up at the comm last year, I got into this interesting little conversation that... actually wasn't about ships at all in the end, and the idea went on nagging me until I finally did something with it.

Did I warn for angst? It's Side Red/Side Black AU fic, and despite the best efforts of a certain cheerful pirate girl, this is pretty much what angst is made for.

( It was a nice way of sugar-coating the fact the Order was now effectively recruiting kids so young they couldn’t lift a crossbow, let alone anything heavier. )

A question for the f-list at large: would any of you be familiar with that addictively little DS game The World Ends With You and willing to do a quick beta job on some fic for me? Three short fics, to be exact (written as a loosely connected series but all finished at once in the end) totalling about 8500 words and containing a bit of mild Shiki/Eri and Neku/Joshua. They've been variously floating around my notebooks and harddrive since sometime around last December, but they're done at last ( \o/ ) and well and truly due for posting by now~

Bit of light relief between all those big projects: here's a drabble written as gift-fic for velithya (though also because wordiness is one of my worst habits and some practice with a form that forces you to be concise is always a good exercise - not to mention an attempt to exorcise one of those cheesier ideas that nags at me from time to time in some kind of safe and controlled manner. velithya is now conspiring to make sure that one backfires at me as badly as possible x_x)

Title: Normal Continuity Will Be Restored Shortly
Word count: 100 (we are very traditional about drabbles around here)
Characters/Pairing: Well, it's like this - I'm posting it to solxky, but, technically speaking...

( Ky offers the man a hand up, only to find he's not slumped against the wall but slouched, watching with naked appreciation, face so impossibly familiar it stops Ky cold. )

Another year, another would-be-birthday slightly overwhelmed by the need to sort out house/rent/moving-related fuss. Probably should have seen this one coming, since we did sign the lease for exactly one year, but we didn't know then that we'd have a housemate leaving or any of the other complications that came up since. It's not even like we're completely flat out, just badly distracted, and me having a skating comp on this weekend doesn't help much there either.

On the other hand, I did wake up to birthday-wishes in my inbox and my housemates made me Dalek cookies, so it's not all bad. :3

Still want to do something properly celebratory, even if it does wind up a month late, but it'll have to wait a bit. ^^;

Back from another year of Swancon (+ couple of days to recoup, + after party at pancakes). Wasn't much at this year's con that could compare to what an awesome guest of honour Rob Shearman made last year (being one of the writers on the new Doctor Who and all around very approachable and excellent value on every panel I saw him on), but it was still overall a very enjoyable con. Attended many entertaining panels, got to catch up with all the usual suspects and an old high school friend I hadn't expected to see there as well, and as usual when many fans conglomerate met a couple of new awesome people as well. The music at the Masquerade was the one big let down this year - hardly anything worth dancing to was played all night, but the Millia/Ky balldress got me some very nice reactions from people, even if no-one had any idea who I was meant to be. Also finally got to bring out some of the crazier clothes bought in Japan, ate some of the best Chinese food I've ever had, and, more importantly, failed to get sick*, failed to get too horribly over-tired at any point and had no cosplay worries to stress about at all. That may well have been the most relaxed Swancon experience I've ever had. :3

*At least until the day after, and even then only a mild sore throat that's mostly gone already.

So of course we get home to discover that a letter we should have gotten to remind us our lease is running out didn't reach us for some reason, and now we've got rather less time than we were thinking we did to make up our minds about whether we want to move or not (probably yes), whether we need to find a new housemate to replace jaseroque when she leaves us soonish (also probably yes, and certainly at least one or the other), not to mention actually find a new place and/or housemate before crunch time.

Not sure what we're going to do about it all yet, but if any of you are expecting to be looking for a place to stay around Perth in the near future, now could be a really excellent time to let us know.

RE: The latest spoilers for this year's Doctor Who specials (spoiler free reaction)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(deep breath)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(okay, I'm done. X3)

Which is also to say that I have had Doctor Who on the brain for the last week, and I already wasted way too much time today (and yesterday) reading the most awesome virtual season 5 Doctor Who fic ever written. Then I went out to the Internet and it was all true.

Well, not all true, obviously. *waves hand* Just both of the important bits.

X3