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. )

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. )

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. )

Title: Casualties of War
Summary: Communication has never been one of Sol’s better talents, but ‘complicating Ky’s life’ probably ranks somewhere on the list.
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 5100
Notes/tags/warnings: *deep breath* War-era, topping!Ky*, some dom/sub-ish themes, explicit sex between persons of a masculine persuasion, misdirected attempts at writing a character study, *hums "The Internet Is For Porn" for good measure*

*Though certainly not bottoming!Sol. Sol comes with two basic modes: "on top" is one, and "topping-from-the-bottom" is the other. ;)

( “Four out of twenty five casualties today,” the Commander supplied curtly, “being the only four lost to friendly fire…” )

If anyone actually noticed I've been around online lately... even less than usual, then it's safe to say that that thing where Waicon was last weekend probably had something to do with it.

After attending every one since 2004, the point has been reached now that I don't think there's much I can say about this year's Waicon that I haven't already said about a previous one - or about several Waicons, if not about every other con I've ever been too. It was even bigger than last year, pinneagig's store make a killing, and despite all last minute stress our costumes came out great - business as usual. Preparations take over your life for anything up to several weeks beforehand, then the con takes over your life, then you wake up Monday morning feeling vaguely hung over yet strangely convinced it was all worth it and completely prepared to do it all over again at the next opportunity.

I also realised that excluding one or two posts about a giant key I've said sweet bugger all about what I was I've been working on that kept me so busy in the lead up. Oops?

Anyhow, apart from recyling my well-traveled Millia costume for its first appearance in the state from whence it hails, my new costume for this year was Syaoran from Tsubasa (the scary one-eyed black-coated version who escapes from Fei Wong's hideout somewhere around volume 16-ish. I would use the general nickname fandom uses to distinguish him from his counterpart, but it's still a bit spoilerish). I've wanted to cosplay that version of Syaoran ever since I encountered him, but didn't get to it last year as Hiei turned out to be more than enough of a job by himself. Putting it off a year did have the advantage that by the time I got around to doing it I'd been to both the Genghiscon and Swancon Jedi Bootcamp sessions of '08 (Star Wars-inspired fight choreography workshops, for the unaware) and came away itching to find an excuse to use some of those moves in a cosplay skit. Lucky me, Syaoran carries a sword. This will be important in a minute.

So how did it all go?

• I WON BEST INDIVIDUAL SKIT ON THE FIRST DAY!!! I was not expecting this. The limit of my weapon handling experience comes down to a bit of background in gymnastics, a bit more in some poi twirling, and having been to Jedi Bootcamp sessions for a couple of weeks. The whole skit consisted of less than a full minute of sword-twirling to music - I didn't think it was going to be long enough to even be considered eligible. But clearly the judges thought otherwise, so who am I to complain? :3
  
  
• WE WON BEST GROUP ON THE SECOND DAY!!! This was a narrower thing than you may think. jaseroque - who was to be the A.B.A. to go with my key - has a history of finishing her costumes at the very last minute, and this year it was something like five minutes before we went up on stage. So not kidding there. But she made a fantastic A.B.A., and velithya joined us again as Sol, the walk-on went well and everything paid off on the day.

( Story notes )

Title: Visitor Etiquette
Rating: NC-17
Summary: There are many more pleasant reasons why Sol might have found himself waking up in Ky's bed than this one.
Word Count: 3870

( Visitor Etiquette )

Right. So. Um. You know those cracked little ideas that leap out and bite you when you’re trying you damnedest to work on something else? Well, the latest example to get to me was a Twilight parody. And say what you like about Twilight, if it was put upon this green earth for any just and holy reason, it was to be parodied.

( A summary for the uninitiated (should there be any left at this point who have managed to avoid all that mania) )

The only reason I have paid any serious attention to it at all is that in its growing infamy, Twilight has vaulted past even So Bad It's Good and landed in So Bad It's Awesome by developing a dedicated second fanbase of lolfans who are into the series for no other reason than for the joy of making fun of it. They've produced a motherload of reviews, parodies and regular reports about the crazy antics of the movie actors, author and fans; varying in tone from the outraged to the unbelieving to the merely amused. If you think this should get old quickly, then you haven't yet grasped just how much there is to make fun of. I have not the slightest interest in ever touching a single one of the books, but I have gotten more enjoyment out of laughing along with this than anything I've seen in a very long time. Twilight has become my first anti-fandom ever.

(Actually, if you really are new to all this, go read cleolinda's wiki and recaps - she is far more witty and entertaining about it than I could ever hope to be, and some of this stuff does need to be seen to be believed.)

The danger of getting involved in this sort of thing is that you wind up running into things like people discussing how the infamous “Do I dazzle you?” scene would have made for infinitely more awesome if it had gone down between not Bella and Edward, but Rose and Doctor Who. The reason this is dangerous is because it will lead to you spending the next morning, when you were trying so very hard to work on all that other stuff on the WIP list, fighting off a chunk of your brain that keeps going “Hey, forget the Doctor, you know who else is all shiny and dazzles the people who work for him all the time?” At this point you are doomed and might as well admit it.

( This would be what you get when you try to write a high school AU and a vampire AU at the same time. )

Obviously I didn't attempt NaNo this year or you would've all heard about it. But since one thing or another has kept me from writing or posting hardly any fic since I finished the Ghost Stories draft in late July, I did declare November Local Get On With It Already Month, and turned out the reasonably respectable total of about 20,000 words (most of which haven't been edited or posted yet). That's not counting over 15,000 words worth of posts since I got back from Japan about all that stuff I've been up to lately, which doesn't strictly count but does chew into one's writing time in a significant sort of way. So I'm going to call that a decent sort of success.

While I'm talking about writing, I thought I'd post a new WIP list - partly so I can use it for my own checklist, but also for anyone who might be interested in what's in the works (or who wants to put in a vote for where my priorities should be out of all those different projects). No proper extracts this time because I am feeling lazy though convincing me to add them in probably would not be all that hard.

Also while I'm talking about writing, cheloya and lunargeography, I know neither of you are on LJ much lately, but if you are reading this, are you still up for betaing duties if the story in question is ready some time soon? ^^;

( xxxHOLiC/Tsubasa fic )

( The World Ends With You fic )

( Guilty Gear fic )

...yep, that should about keep me going for a while. x_x

Finally done! ^^; Meant to have this posted ages ago (and I've still got all our WEWY stuff from the same trip to cover yet ><), but as so often happens with good intentions like that, distractions are plentiful and free time rather less so. Anyway, better late than never and all that, there is more than enough to cover.

Since I've already talked about the more general experience of the Tokyo Gameshow in a previous post (and the Squeenix closed theatre session elsewhere) I'll just summarise here: most of the interesting GG-related stuff happened on day two of the convention. I was cosplaying Millia, and velithya (my partner in crime for the purposes of this report) was there as Sol. We were there with a bunch of other friends as well, but they were cosplaying from other series, so won't feature so prominently in this report.

The ArcSys booth was pretty low-key this year. I was expecting they'd probably have some major promotional stuff for that upcoming shameless GG clone BlazBlue game, but there was next to nothing there about it. As compared to the giant display they had last year when they had Overture to promote, there wasn't much more than a small presentation area. This is not entirely a bad thing - as friends of mine had reported from last year, the advantage of being fans of a game made by a small company with a booth that doesn't get as much attention as the big industry names is that the staff are a lot less busy and a lot happier to talk to you or, say, track down Ishiwatari Daisuke for a cosplayer who wants a photo with him. Queues for the signing in the afternoon were much shorter too, which you learn to seriously appreciate after seeing how bad they get around places like the Squeenix booth.

The staff also included a helpful English-speaking staff member was nice enough to answer a couple of our bigger questions, which I'll cover here before I get bogged down with posting all those photos down below.

( At long last, answers to a couple of those big Overture-related questions )

( The rest of the report and lots of photos )