Moonlight Held in Flesh

Story-bit

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:33:34 GMT

Originally, this was posted on 19th April 2009. I'd never experienced depression before. Depression was simply something that had happened to a couple of friends and family members. This was... a sort of contribution to what I interpreted that feeling to be, inspired by the Placebo song Without you I'm nothing.

Now it's four years later. I've struggled a lot over the last six months and I have a deeper of the understanding of these words I wrote way back then. They just need to be here now, unchanged.

**

Young girl, sitting in a corner in her room, guitar sitting between her legs and fingers lazily strumming the notes, the chords. Her younger sister had come in to tell her to be quieter, but it had been a while ago and it seemed the sister had accepted the noise. Dark hair, almost black, falls over her eyes as the girl bends her head to look over the chords she plays. It's not a special song, certainly not one she's made up. She's just learning the chords from a well loved Placebo song.

I'm unclean, a libertine
And every time you vent your spleen,
I seem to lose the power of speech,
You're slipping slowly from my reach.
You grow me like an evergreen,
You never see the lonely me at all

A loud sigh is heard as the door to her bedroom is open. Her friend's tall and lanky form is the first figure to be betrayed, but the opening of her door reveals also her younger sister behind his shoulder. She's granted another opportunity to vent her displeasure before the door is closed again.

The girl makes one last strum of a chord and then puts the guitar aside. Her friend takes her bed, slim fingers touching each other at the tips as he glances her way. He's self possessed and she wishes she was self possessed. He makes messy look like a fashion statement, yet his hair over his eyes reminds her of the hair she has haphazardly tied back to keep from her face. She smiles, maybe sadly, maybe self deprecatingly, as her friend tips his head in a silent question, but it is a smile all the same, and boys are well practiced at accepting what is shown on the surface.

"What's up?" Her fingers twitch for the sake of finishing song and she curls her fingers so her small nails bite palms.

The boy inclines his head. "You weren't at practice."

Without her guitar, the girl is free to stand, to move out of the corner of her room and towards the window. "I didn't think I needed to be."

Practice had been orchestrated for the purpose of the new drummer getting a feel for the sounds of the rest of the guys. Vocals would come later, but she would have been welcome to attend.

There was no reply for a while. Her bed wasn't the kind that creaked when someone moved on it. As a result, her friend managed to stand and cross the room so that she was unaware of it until his arms were around her waist. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, you know." A weak shrug of the shoulder. "Just one of those days."

"Anything I can do to help?"

His head was bent, his lips near her throat, and she could think of many things. She smiled again, this time a smile he could not see.

"You're already doing everything you can do to help."

The houses outside of her window were mostly lower storey houses, and she was glancing out at a forest of roofs. She was dancing on those roofs at the same time as being held in the arms of her friend. She was dancing, she was still.

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Kill me Softly, by Sarah Cross.

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 23:17:46 GMT

(Cross-posted to my blogger: http://nicole-d-fergusson.blogspot.com.au)

One year ago, this book showed up on my Tumblr feed. Now, I love fairy tales, I love fairies, I love fantasy. It's pretty safe to say I love all these things to do with 'F'.

It's also safe to say that I enjoy reading Young Adult fiction.

So, as you can imagine, when I finally got around to this novel, it was an absolute delight to read!

Part Holly Black's Valiant, part Cassandra Clare's 'The Mortal Instruments', part Alex Flinn's Beastly, this book was all parts awesome. Sarah Cross managed to put into this fairy tale novel a real sense of grittiness into the town of Beau Ridge which is, to all intents and purposes, a fairy tale town. But not a nice, censored, Disney-style town. This is a town in which Bluebeard tries to pick up the damsel in distress and Sleeping Beauty makes the choice to prick her finger in order to save her life.

In all honesty, after a year of knowing about this book and not being able to find it, I almost completed the whole thing in a day!

The only reason why I didn't was, of course, because the reading of this book also overlapped with the last days of having my partner's daughter in the state. She is absolutely adorable, and I wouldn't have missed out on a minute of extra time I got to spend with her.

However, as some of you know, I've been dealing with depression and anxiety over the last several months, and I gave it until the date of this little lady's departure to stay on a regular course of St. John's wort and see if that might prove a possible alternative to something harsher, like anti-depressants.

It's not been all smooth sailing. During the time of this course, my car battery died outside of a shopping centre and it seems like the very warm weather Melbourne has been experiencing aided an infestation of maggots in my living room. In addition to that, my work lifted the 20 hours per week of my contract to a full 40 hours over two weeks. Last week was a very shit week. And it was with a combination of practical solutions to these problems as well as the mental space that the St. John's offered that got me through it. I've had to jump up to 2000mg (a full sized tablet rather than the tablet cut in half) to get the effect I wanted.

This week has been much easier.

The only problem I'm facing now? The knowledge that I'm not ready to come off this herbal supplement just yet. I have tried halving the dose again, cutting it down while still keeping it in my system. Within hours after, I'm feeling anxiety creeping up and I just don't have the mental reserves yet to keep it at bay, to shut it in a box called 'Irrational' and keep moving forward. Not yet.

So, I'm still leaning on it, then. For a little while longer at least.

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The scoop:

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:03:37 GMT

There have been a bunch of people asking me what is going on with this 'new job' that I've been talking about on my Twitter this last week. People are bound to start doing the same when I start writing about the boy's 'new job' as well. So this is a post that is aimed to fix that.

The Goss:

Two Saturdays ago, I was told I wasn't needed at Of Science and Swords. Sad face. Lots of big damned crying actually, as well as my absence at a good friend's birthday party. Which is why I haven't gone into detail about that. I loved that job, and I wasn't really happy by the way it was handled at the end of it. But I have two beautiful boys who looked after me and whom I really didn't leave the sight of for the next four days.
*loves on*

I had been looking around for jobs that were going to give me more hours in addition to the bookshop job, as one day work a week (maybe two if someone was sick / had a funeral), was not enough. Especially since I finished my Honours and decided against picking up a PhD straight away.

Without any continuing obligations owing to Of Science and Swords, I upped my job search from part time to full time. Last Tuesday I had an interview. Last Thursday I had a job. Tomorrow I'll have been in training for an Origin customer service role for a week. Not highly interesting stuff but, like at the bookshop, they've been good enough to let me go for a casual pay rate and so I feel like I've had a dollar per hour increase in wages for another job where I can sit in front of a computer and deal with customers. Albeit, I won't be so interested in the product people are asking about but what can you do?

The truly exciting news is the news one of my boys came home with tonight. For the last week, we've been sitting on the news that a company has been head-hunting him. There have been to-ing and fro-ing emails arranging things like his job description, pay packet, location for work as they are a Sydney based company. In the last week, we've been asked if we would consider moving up to Sydney.

We did consider it, and then came back with a firm answer of no. Pretty much, you guys are all too damned awesome to leave behind.

So we're not moving to Sydney. But they were still interested in hiring my boy. Basically, they wanted his experience and expertise and are willing to do a lot to have it. Today, he came home with the news that the job had been formally offered to him, with conditions that he was pleased to accept and that, in two weeks, he will be moving from his current company to the new one.

And spending the next two weeks over in Sydney. Starting the day before his 31st birthday.*

Yeaaah.

Still, many of these things are good things and of the moving forward variety!

*It's the boy's request that if congratulations are forthcoming, they be said in person or through private messages on FB. Thanks :)

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Story sound off:

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:30:09 GMT

This is largely for my reference, but here's something to keep you all interested all the same:

Shadows of Melbourne (original trilogy of stories):
Paranormal romance.
Gothic: A novel where the main character, and the whole cast of characters, is introduced. Also, main character would like to be anywhere but in a paranormal novel. Fairly werewolf centric. Finished.
Carnival: Main character is a fair bit more settled with the fact she's not going to manage to escape her paranormal life. The fae get involved and the vampires and werewolves have a territory war. Read a bit of Last Watch for inspiration here. Finished, but for the shouting of it.
Collateral (working title): Main character is being pursued as a pawn in the games of the fae, vampires have long memories and may have to get around that in order to form an alliance with the werewolves they know against the enemy they don't.

Winters Duology:
Young adult.
Tidal Wave: Themes of broken families written from the perspective of a sixteen year old girl, drug use and addiction, with a happy ending for the heroine. Finished.
Shutter Down: Written from the step brother of the other book, sociopathy and bad boy themes where the bad boy doesn't automatically get the girl.

Untitleds:
Young adult lesbian/coming out story:
Constance Murray, calls herself Con, refers to herself as 'himself', cross dresses much to the dismay of her parental units and the kids at school who thinks she's a big freak just going for attention. She doesn't have a lot of friends apart from Kjell who is pretty sure that he is gay.
Alice Psyche Waterhouse, born of rather parents who both legally changed their names to Waterhouse when they married and gave all their children names of god/desses as middle names. Alice is the shiest one of the bunch and does her best not to be noticed, currently trying out not being gay.
Young adult gay/coming out story:
Kjell Strøm, comes from rather non-conventional Norwegian immigrants who moved to Australia after a schism with his mother's parents, they will object to anything that her parents would accept on principle. Kjell has told his grandparents that he is gay but not his parents, wants true love but has started to accept that it's not something that's going to happen in high school.
Adrian Hardy, arrogant transfer student in last year of high school, estranged from his family and currently living on his own because he wasn't dealing with being gay, projected onto them how they were supposed to react and got out of there early.

Fairy tale series:
Either an anthology of short stories, or a couple of longer pieces, where both romantic leads in the fairy tales are the same gender. An idea sparked off by a conversation with inkbats.

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Valentine's Day

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:39:49 GMT

I'm really starting to hate this stereotype that women need to hate Valentine's Day, or at least be indifferent to it, in order to be some sort of kickass modern girl. Statements like 'she's my kind of girl' that seem to follow this observation are really starting to piss me off. Seems to insinuate that there's something wrong with any girl who gets excited over Valentine's Day. And there's not. Not any more than a girl who hates it or is indifferent to the whole gimmick.

Valentine's Day is merely one day out of the year that can be put aside to spend with your loved one(s). I've seen it spark of other lovely offshoots, such as I'm Already Busy on Tuesday, Let's Go Out On Thursday Instead Day (February 16th), Polyamorous Chocolate Day (March 14th), and even We Haven't Gone Out For a While and That Dinner We Had in Feb Was Great, So Let's Do It Again Day (Dates to be confirmed).

Negativity such as 'But it's just a commercial holiday to sell cards and chocolates' has no place there. Apart from perhaps, 'Yes. And?' Because I've found the responce to that most commonly is some regurgitation of,'And I'm a Modern Woman. I don't need to feed in to commercial culture to feel special.'

Well, why not? What's wrong with being spoilt by your partner for a night? And what's wrong with, months or weeks later, you decide to return the favour and spoil them right back? What's the harm in Valentine's Day then? Most of my Valentine's Days haven't even included a card or any chocolates, but a nice dinner at a favoured restaurant instead.

With this swing towards anti-Valentine's Day, I can't help but be put in mind of the way that housewives were treated after women's liberation had women going out into the work force. A woman liking Valentine's Day has almost become the new, 'But I like being a housewife and I like looking after my husband and kids' made her less of a modern woman. She was kicking women's lib in the teeth, or knocking it back 20 years, or some nonsense.

I don't like the idea of being a housewife. Cleaning bathrooms squicks me out far too much for that, especially when I have a perfectly good boy to do it for me. Never mind the kids! But I really like looking after my boy, my girl, or whoever I'm dating, when it comes down to it. I didn't always like Valentine's Day. As a teen girl, I too felt the empowerment of 'I don't need Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is stupid and lame and I don't want any part in it.' Maybe that's the reason why I'm standing here on my soap box. Looking back, I can't see any good reason why I didn't celebrate Valentine's Day with my first boyfriend, especially since we had a regular date night around the middle of each month every month except for February.

And I don't think that makes me any less than the next girl because I like Valentine's Day.

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Hush, Hush -- Becca Fitzgerald.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:25:36 GMT

Warning: This is not going to be a nice review. In fact, starting right now, we are going to call this an 'anti-review'. This is not one of those reviews where the reviewer is going to have a couple of problems with the pacing of the story or some of the characters but, overall, the story managed to pull itself together.

Warning the Second: I did recognise, when I picked this book up off the shelves that it was aimed at young adults. I love reading young adult books. I think of the young adult fiction today and I wish that it had been around when I was 16 years old. As it wasn't, I make it up by reading lots of it now. In other parts of this blog, you will find me waxing poetic about authors like Francesca Lia Block, Melissa Marr and Janni Lee Simner.

To set the scene, I am wandering innocently through the airport with my friend the_bone_yard when suddenly the call of a bookshop proves too strong for us to ignore. The two of us walk in and I get distracted by a book on the New Release stand.

Now, this book is not Hush, Hush, but rather the third book in the trilogy, Crescendo. I shall get back to that again later.

Weaving my way further into the shop, I find that, right up against the very back wall, there is a couple of copies of the second book. This should have been my first hint: right up against the very back wall. Not only that but, when I move the second book to read the back of it, I find the first book craftily hidden.

Lucky! I think to myself. I read the blurb of the first book. And then I read the blurb of second and third books over again, in order this time.

My Thoughts upon Reading the Blurbs: Oh goodness! This is so brilliant. The first book looks like it's going to run like City of Angels, minus the depressing resignation I feel every time I see that picture of stupid Meg Ryan closing her eyes and taking her hands off the handle bars on the back of the DVD case. What did you think was going to happen, Meg?

But, Oho! I think, as I look again upon the second and third books. That there are two sequels means that the main character must live past the end of the first book. She doesn't take her hands off the handlebars, close her eyes and look up into the sky because, well gosh, it's such a lovely day. And so we'll have two more books in which to explore what should have happened in City of Angels.

I'm so excited I can barely think straight. I picture me closing myself up in my bedroom, putting on my copy of the City of Angels soundtrack for background music and ambiance, before indulging in my guiltiest little pleasure since The Vampire Diaries.

The prologue of Becca's Hush, Hush is very good. It conveys a sense of scene very well, though touches lightly enough on the characters that I am sitting there wanting to know more about them. I am invested within these 5 pages, and am looking forward to more.

It's a pity, then, that there is no indication for the next 100 pages where this scene in the prologue is meant to fit in.

Instead, we begin to follow the every day life of a teenage school girl in whom a supernatural type figure has become fascinated with before ever even once speaking to her. I think, at one point, he says something along the lines of, "You're fascinating. I knew you would be."

.... How??!!

This is something that is not explained. I have read enough books like this in the last 12 years to know, by now, it is never explained. Anywhere in all the world for an immortal man to go, and he'll always choose the high school full of teenaged girls. Not creepy, guys. Not creepy at all.

In hindsight, I suspect my disappointment in this book had more to do with what I saw as misrepresentation of the back cover blurbs. Usually, I don't read them. I go on suggestions on what to read next by other writers or friends who have similar tastes. But I'd never heard of Becca's books before, and so I read the blurbs.

Truthfully, this book will probably be found thrilling by readers of Twilight. Many of the same tropes are used in both.

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Relevant to my interests

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:05:29 GMT

I sincerely love this blog that gailcarriger has incidentally gotten me onto.

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com.au/

In the most recent post, he writes about Gail Carriger's steampunk novel, the beginning of the Parasol Protectorate series, Soulless, compares it to Bram Stoker's Dracula and draws parallels between the New Woman of works written 100 years ago and now but set in the same time. The combination of contemporary content and academic exploration makes this a blog after my own heart!

Also on the site, he has tabs for both primary and secondary sources for her steampunk PhD for people to trawl through.

One of the recent posts up there is on Sherlock Holmes: The Breath of God by Guy Adams, which I'm just about to read and didn't even know about till I found this blog.

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2011 - A year in review

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:16:42 GMT

I've been pondering the obligatory year in review post around work and... well, just work actually. Uni is finished for the year... maybe for longer. I've gotten both my thesis and my mark for Honours mailed back to me in the past week, and I've officially started lying that I haven't yet had either. Particularly to the in-laws who have all the high aspirations for me and knew my plans to go into PhD next year.

I'm couching the idea of 'taking a year off' next year like it was I choice I was allowed to make.

However, when I'm talking to people more broadly, when I'm looking over 2011 and comparing it to years most recently before it, I'm coming up with a whole lot of smiles. This year has been without drama, I say with confidence. This year has been happy, and positive, and wonderful. This conveniently forgets and leaves out the stress headaches, the crying at mid year over my first low mark (but not my last..) and all the other hurdles along the way.

But then, a friend of mine -- someone I didn't really know last year, but someone who has moved towards being one of my best friends over the course of this year -- wrote something in her year in review and I believe it's what I've been trying to say all along: It has not been a year without drama, but with that drama have come some rather astounding revelations.

Although it's a bit hard looking at the Honours year without seeing it as a bit of a waste of time right now, I've stopped obsessing about it and am starting to look up at the options surrounding me, options that have no doubt been all around me for the last couple of years when I've had my head down and bum up resolutely pouring over books in my uncompromising journey to the top of the academic mountain.

So, it's a good thing to have this opportunity to breathe and take stock of the rest of the world. It's even a good thing that it's something I've been forced into, as I clearly would not have done it if left to my own devices.

It's a good thing to have had the support of so many friends this year. I can, for the first time in years, say that none of the drama this year has been caused by anyone I hold close to my heart. In fact, I just have so much love for all of my close people that I can barely contain it as I type these words. You are all amazing.

And, in the balance, this year has been amazing.

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Blood of the Dragon

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:40:40 GMT

I may have been completely disillusioned by True Blood this last season, but words can't express just how much I'm looking forward to the new season of Game of Thrones!!!

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The Fairy Girl

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:56:10 GMT

http://les-bonnes-fees.com/index.html

A couple of years ago, I sent a short story in for submission in an online magazine called Les Bonnes Fees. The story was an original fairy tale about a fairy girl who stepped across the grass and into the life of a human girl, and it owed more than a little in inspiration to W. B. Yeats' poem 'The Stolen Child' and to the novel by the same name written by Keith Donohue.

It's now been a while since that story was getting any sort of attention and I though I might bring it out again. This will be the first time it's appeared in print.

Right now, I'm furiously trying to get it ready for Melbourne's Manifest convention... but I'm starting to feel that this may be a little bit optimistic...

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Fuck this! (aka: The Writer's problem)

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 07:28:43 GMT

This is actually not the first time I've dipped my feet into the waters of writing. Why have I returned, you ask?

I'm real good at talking to my friends and helping them come to 'epiphany' moments. "Oh, I realise this was what was getting me down," or "Damn, I really didn't think about it like that, but..."

My partner is this really inspiring man who sees what he wants in front of him and immediately starts taking strides towards getting it. This isn't without faults -sometimes he pushes too hard, sometimes he falls too low when someone tells him he's dreaming too high- but he takes this stuff in stride, and keeps going. Always keeps going. I kinda look at him in awe.

A good friend just posted the list of Hugos and associated prizes winners, and I realised, I want to win Best New Writer one day. That friend and I have come up with a harmonious deal between us that we will keep each other posted and then keep out of the way during each others' chosen years.

A friend that I work with has just released a book of short stories on Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/King-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B005HW4CNM/

I've had it in my head for so long that I'm not going to be a 'Worthwhile Writer (TM)' unless my work is picked up and recognised by a publishing house and, because of that, have sat there on my thumbs and done very little about it.

This is particularly daft because I have been picked up and e-published over in America several times and, for the last five years, have belittled that achievement because 1/ it was genre writing, and 2/ it was e-published.

Then there's this stigma about self-publishing that this exists even though it seems to become less relevant the more technologically savvy and e-book reader reliant we (even in Australia) become. However, that stigma seems to be mainly to do with the quality of editing that these self-published books have.

It was already so hard to get yourself picked up by a publishing house when I was in high school; it's about a hundred or so times more difficult these days. And then, even if/when you get picked up, there are the internal politics of most publishing houses that will put the books/authors that are more known against the unknown writer of dubious sales. I've even heard of someone's book being accepted and then never published, though the house ended up keeping the option for the rest of the two years of the contract.

Don't get me into the fact that, in this day and age, any aspiring writer -or any writer at all, really- needs to get hip deep into their own marketing/publicity side. Again, unless you are a well known author, the majority of publishing houses just aren't going to do that for you.

I look at all of this and I wonder what, really, is the good of waiting for a publishing house to sit up and discover me?

I have these amazing contacts and friends from my e-publishing times, and have since made many more.

I have a workshopping circle I meet with most Tuesdays, and several people who have either established proof reading business or upcoming ones. Hell, the number of people I've had offer just to read my creative thesis as experience for their proof reading business before the end of the year has astounded and flattered me.

I have this wonderful idea for a series of hand bound chapbooks that I've been sitting on for almost a year now (okay, there have been reasons, and perhaps even this close to the end of honours is not the best time for me to be picking this up again but, so, whatever..)

I have this amazing boss who has already told me not to undersell myself if/when I put these chapbooks together and that they will happily sit in our science fiction and fantasy bookshop.

Not to mention the many friends that have come up to me over the years and said that, if I ever do get any of my work published, even self published, that they want to read it because I'm one of the few amateur writers whose work they already enjoy.

So, you know what? I have a goal ahead of me. And that goal is made up of a whole bunch of teeny tiny little steps that may, one day, lead up to that great big goal in the sky: Best New Writer.

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"I used to get up early and watch the morning quicken in the grey"

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:55:22 GMT

This is an excerpt from a poem I am reading for my last Honours class: Aurora Leigh, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but oh, I wish I could write like this.

And I, so young then, was not sullen. Soon
I used to get up early, just to sit
And watch the morning quicken in the grey,
And hear the silence open like a flower,
Leaf after leaf,–and stroke with listless hand
The woodbine through the window, till at last
I came to do it with a sort of love,
At foolish unaware: whereat I smiled,–
A melancholy smile, to catch myself
Smiling for joy.

...

Often we walked only two,
If cousin Romney pleased to walk with me.
We read, or talked, or quarrelled, as it chanced;
We were not lovers, nor even friends well-matched–
Say rather, scholars upon different tracks,
And thinkers disagreed; he, overfull
Of what is, and I, haply, overbold
For what might be.

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The Serpentine Girl

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:43:41 GMT

The Queen is dark. Dark skin, dark nails polished and pointy at the ends. Dark lashes grow long from her eyelids, creating cruel shadows over sharp cheekbones. Spider web gossamer makes up the dress that flows from shoulders to ankles. Her dark hair is broken by florescent pink highlights; the only colour.

Around her, subjects pay court. They are in many different shapes and sizes. Horns and wings are popular themes. One small creature seems clothed entirely in vines. Another has bark for hair. They like to leave bark in place of the ones they steal. Bark and bracken. They laugh about it afterwards.

Before them all, a serpentine girl awaits their pleasure. Awaits the Queen's pleasure. None of those paying court are moving. They all are there awaiting the Queen's pleasure; dreading her displeasure.

"Play." The Queen's word is formal.

The serpentine girl is blue and green. Her arms and legs are long, flowing; fingers and toes have extra joints. She is beautiful, hair flowing like water, trinkets in it like goldfish swimming through sea weeds. Her painted skin is bare, perfect globes for breasts that barely move as she twists and turns in impossible contortions that seem perfectly natural to her form.

Her audience stares in silence that is only broken occasionally by awed gasps that she seems hardly aware of. Her hair flows into her face and away again. Her gaze has attached itself to a far-away point on the wall.

"I tire of this quickly," says the Queen. Courtiers look around and a new silence, made of in-held breaths, replaces the last.

The serpentine girl seems not at all surprised. Rumours of this Queen have come a long way, so that when the serpentine girl was summoned, she knew her likely fate. Once, death had been terrible to the long-lived races. Not so with this Queen. Still she had come to make this dance.

As her fate came to fall down upon her, the serpentine girl moved not at all, fingers still and clasped before her smooth nether regions, hair long but still, as though it had never looked like water. Her lips seem big now, pronounced, out of place. Her nose is small. Her gaze is no longer fixed on some far off point. Her stare pins every faerie in place, calling them on their compliance to let this action occur.

It is almost a relief when her head is relieved from her shoulders. It rolls towards several courtiers to the right of the Queen. They all step back into the faeries behind them.

Even the blood runs blue.

The Queen is unmoved. The night is young.

"Next!"

**

I wrote this -- something like this -- a very long time ago.. and then promptly lost it. It's been playing around in my head ever since and tonight, buried nose deep in my new copies of Holly Black's the idea came to me again and I decided to rewrite it. There's a whole novel attached to this vignette, less than half of which is written.

I'm torn between writing that novel for my PhD, or the piece I've been working on and off with since I was 16. 11 years on and I can still stand the sight of the latter. But my interests and exegesis are more in line with the mostly unwritten novel that I've had in mind for only 3 or 4 years.

But hey, at least I'm talking about my PhD again!

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Bones of Faerie -- Janni Lee Simner

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 07:07:49 GMT

This book is like Francesca Lia Block and Melissa Marr teamed up to write the book of my dreams.

Well no, actually, it's not as good as all that. But it has elements of both writers which is giving me a nostalgic zing. The intrigue of a Faerie book written after a War between humans and faeries sometime in the near future keeps me turning pages.

Actually, I can do better than that. In my teenage years, I read a lot of books by Sherryl Jordan. While a beautifully evocative author, her books were a little bit sameish on theme: stories were often about outcasts and, much of the time, they would be set in some post-apocalyptic world/historical world. Both backdrops had much the same feeling.

With Janni Lee's first book, Bones of Faerie, I'm getting a bit of that vibe. The main character, Liza, is an immediately sympathetic character. Supporting characters are vivid. It is not just the bits and pieces of information on the humans vs faeries War that keeps me turning pages.

I know that, in a year or so, Melissa Marr's first book Wicked Lovely is going to be released as a movie. Around that time, there is going to be multitudes of fanfic flying up all over the place. In the meantime, though, this book is making me want to take that characters from that universe (because I am too busy to think up original characters, naturally) and put them into the situation of War against the humans. \

A part of me is hoping that Janni Lee's sequel novel, Faerie Winter, is going to be a prequel -- much like Malinda Lo's Huntress was a prequel/sequel of her Cinderella story Ash -- but a bigger part of me somehow doubts it.

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Real Life Post

Sun, 29 May 2011 13:05:52 GMT

I meant to write many posts on here. Original writing, fandom, pictures of anything. Everything.

Truth is, life just got busy. Right now, I'm nearing the end of my first semester of Honours, and that's taking up a lot of the background of my mind. I'm loving it, and I feel like I've managed my time really well. If I get offered more hours at work next semester, I feel like I can take them. Thesis is in full whole draft stage. Two course work units are both at final draft stages. Yet, even when I'm sitting around on my computer doing nothing much (like right now), I'm thinking about how much I'm not!doing Honours work/reading/writing/etc.

It's just... tiring. When I stop and think about it... I realise it's a lot more tiring than I've been giving credence too.

I've been filling my time more liberally with social stuff these last couple of weeks. Unconsciously, I suppose, I've realised that spending all of my time on my Honours is not healthy. My boy has already taken and practiced crazyjane's advice of taking papers I was reading from me and calmly saying, "Not now."

That the weather doesn't know what it's doing isn't helping, and what's really not helping was having a solid week of overcast in the week just gone which made my wakefulness seem... difficult. Most of Friday disappeared in a sort of dream. Overcast is the worst. Inevitably, by the end of the day, I have that feeling of having not slept the night before and ready to fall over the minute it gets dark.

And then, of course, there was my Glee marathon two nights ago that made the world a happier place, and kept me up till 4.30am.

On happier places, I have a new girlfriend, and my boy has a new almost!girlfriend. I sometimes catch myself staring off into space with this foolish smile on my face. Those are wonderful moments, and not just because they are also moments in which I completely forget about the Honours work that I am not!reading/writing/etc.

I want more time. I'm absolutely loving everything in my life right now. At the moment, I seem to be managing to juggle everything so that nothing and nobody important is neglected. But I do want more time. This last week, particularly, I've been taking more time to myself than I usually do. I really feel like, with all the things going on at the moment, I need to make sure that I am quite aware of where my own head's at. And I am getting on top of that. I just also feel like... if I could let go of this tiredness, just a little bit, I would be enjoying everything that much more :)

Edit: And, yes, the irony of making a post about tiredness at 11pm instead of simply going to bed is not at all lost on me :D

*trundles to bed*

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Glee 2.20

Thu, 12 May 2011 09:35:04 GMT

Watching Glee yesterday, I'm thinking two things.

What is that name down in the bottom corner there? O.o

And that was it for me for the rest of that conversation. I didn't even know what happened in it till the second time I watched it through.

Then, as the episode progressed, I'm thinking: Must write fanfic quickly, as there's no way that he's going to continue being in the show this time around beyond the current season!!! (Okay, I haven't actually checked this with facts that I could no doubt find on the internet, I'd rather be pleasantly surprised).

Oh, actually, I lie. There was one thing I thought of that wasn't Jonathan Groff related, and that was: This is exactly what I would have liked my prom to be about had I had one. All about women dancing with each other, men dancing with each other, "Someone for everyone," as Kurt at one point says. There's drama and fighting, threatened torture and the Glee group actually making 'Friday' sound good. (As a friend said, though, this song choice seemed there only to be able to prove that they can make absolutely any crappy thing look fantastic.)

I especially liked the framing of Kurt/Santana/Quinn all saying that they weren't going back into the prom room, and the latter two making plans to run away from the school entirely.

All in all, Santana and Jesse are my favorite characters (what's wrong with me?), and I truly wish that they would one day break away from the show to create their own spin-off series if either of them have to leave at all.

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Steampump!

Sun, 08 May 2011 07:55:23 GMT

Last night, from 7pm, was the second annual Steampump event put together by the guys who go around to schools doing the History Up Close program.

By about 6.30pm, everyone who had either a stall, connection to History Up Close, or anyone else doing a service was inside and flitting in pre-Steampump socialising. This was lovely, and the first occasion when I happened across the hot chocolates made out of chocolate, milk, and cream. Mmmmmm.

For this event, I'd been approached to do tarot reading. Now, this was with the full awareness that it wasn't something I did professionally, yet I had more than a passing proficiency with the cards. They had this little room sectioned off and draped up in curtains, a little table in the middle of the room covered in pretty fabric for a tablecloth, and a lamp that was dim enough to create just the right atmosphere, but bright enough that I could actually see the cards I was trying to read.

Come about 7.15pm, we tarot readers were approached by the man running the event because apparently people had already started showing an interest in getting a reading. I don't know whether the first people that we read for started saying really nice things, or whether the Steampunk crowd are just open to and excited about the idea of tarot readings. In any case, a 20 minute wait in a line outside of the tarot reading room was about usual all the way until midnight. At one point, instead of switching on and off, another room was created for us so that the two of us who were reading could read at the same time. That was a real special hour and a half without break. But in a good way.

This was the first time I'd read so many people who were not people I knew at all. Of course, there was the odd person who came in that I knew; two in fact were people that I knew but didn't know well enough to know what I could get away with saying, or how frank I should be, and that created its own special level of awkwardness until I was able to move past it.

By and large, I found that the readings that were most appreciated were the readings that I was sure I was getting so wrong by the second card that I was almost ready to put down the cards and apologise that I wasn't sure what I was going on about. There were a lot of people who came in with that 'this'll be a laugh' kind of game expression at the start and, by the end, were reaching into their pockets for $10s and $20s towards the donations that we'd announced would be welcome.

The strangest thing was... I believe I got a 100% hit rate, which seems utterly ludicrous, considering the sheer number of people who came through. It seemed, long before the end, that there were three different kinds of people sitting there after readings and, somehow, the readings that I was giving were received equally well by all three groups.

1/ In this group, I would put the people who have their own working interaction with magic and/or universe. They are the types who likely do their own tarot readings to clarify moments on their own path, and are therefore coming to another tarot reader to get second opinion and/or just simple confirmation of the messages they've themselves gotten.
2/ The second group of people are those who would likely be more than happy to have a working communication with the universe and/or their own set of tarot cards if they could make sense out of what either or both are trying to say.
3/ The third are the ones who inevitably ended readings with a statement similar to 'Wow, this is what my friends have been saying to me for ages'. They are the sort who, if they don't like what they are hearing from the universe/friends/other, have a tendency to stick their head in the sand ostrich-style. I actually found myself coming out with these words to a couple of them and, by and large, they are not unaware that they do this.

In the course of the night, one of the people who came in, after receiving her reading, offered me her card and told her she was an event manager and to give her a call this week. Which was incredibly flattering, and something I have to now decide whether it's something I want to go into. Cause, if I was interpreting her correctly, this could mean I have a possibility for being a sort of carnival-style tarot reader at more than this event.

I'm not the kind of tarot reader who takes the whole thing too seriously, really. To me, the entire night was a whole lot of fun, made up largely of the amount of gratitude that was shown both in words and donations. None of the readings were incredibly in depth, purely because the line discouraged it. For most, readings went for about 15 minutes and were a crude combination of a part of the Celtic cross and the past, present, future spreads, with extra cards being drawn at need. I liked that I didn't need to fill out a particular space of time; these readings just went for the amount of time they needed to, and then it was time for the next one. In that way, this environment suited me much more than the hippy shop type tarot reading option that I've also tried out.

However, for all that, the decision is going to have to be made up on a 'do I have time?' kind of basis. Steampump was an event that I was interested in attending anyway. Being paid for being there and, in fact, not having to pay entry, was just icing on the top of a steampunk-decorated cake.

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Samael - (original fiction)

Thu, 05 May 2011 12:31:53 GMT

Inspired by the second of Justina Robson's second sci-fi elf-and-demon book, Selling Out, and the elf speaking of the main character as 'his girlfriend'.

*

He was finally here.

Over the hill, where the trees that didn't sing grew, past the buildings that seemed to suck in light, amidst pedestrians who didn't seem to feel the connection with the ground they walked on.

Samael stood on a not too busy street in suburbia. Not too busy by human standards, perhaps. Traffic flowed without backing up much, but Samael couldn't make himself look back to those moving boxes of metal for long. It was still a struggle to remind himself that he would not have an adverse reaction to it. However, having an elderly woman help him across a road several streets back, had bruised his pride and made Samael decide he would deal better with these things.

He had demanded to be here. If fast moving vehicles were another part of being here, that was the price. In turn, he would just have to think of them as horses. Brightly coloured, chrome, flashing horses, that growled and rolled on wheels, but horses nonetheless.

Dark had told him that his life here would take longer to get used to than the physical body he now wore, and now Samael believed him. The guardian had given him a look of mild pity when they came to be here after Samael's first moment of contact with the trees.

"Do you need a moment?" The words had been delivered with the perfect impartiality that Dark had ever used to speak with him, and Samael had shaken his head and indicated they should move on. Every minute longer that kept him away from Tiana was needless.

Now, standing at the window that reflected not just his physical form, but the mobile metal boxes beyond him, he almost wished he'd taken that moment by the trees.

Then he saw her on the other side of the mirror, and found he couldn't move even one step towards her.

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Glee!!!

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:21:34 GMT

I have been waiting for this episode of Glee all season. Each season so far has now had that one episode that has stood out as one that I could watch back to back to back ad nauseam, the one from first season being 'Vitamin D' and, in particular, this scene from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og_8Trt_nTs
It's My Life / Confessions

This week's episode, 'Born This Way', I actually did watch twice back to back. Every single scene in this episode made me want to watch it again straight away! And, yeah, I could be doing my homework, but this is way more fun and it's holidays.

**SPOILERS**

This episode begins with pretending that the members of this Glee club can't dance. Again. Of course, they are immediately punished for this when Finn knocks Rachel to the floor (by accident!!), which heralds the arrival of the Worst Doctor In History who tells her it's broken but "a great excuse for a nose job!"
Risks here are completely overlooked, as are any actual doctor-y investigation.

This is followed by another scene in which Santana "keeps it real" :D :D as she gives us an insight as to why she decided to get a boob job last season.

I'm really glad that they have gone back to the Santana / Brittany storyline, as well as totally hearting the idea that, if Santana got prom queen, Brittany would believe her if Santana told her it was "royal decree" for them to date. I love this idea so much I'm considering writing fanfic for it, including the line that Santana "has to gay".

Oh! The look on Quinn's face when Rachel thanks her for coming to the doctor with her.

Quinn: I'm surprised more girls haven't asked me. My nose is totally awesome!
Rachel: *all understanding and knowing nods with a little fangirling in there as Quinn asks to be able to count on her vote*

Little do we realise how important this nose is to her. Seeing the look on Rachel's face, during Quinn's big noting of herself is amusing too since Rachel is often in the position of big noting herself.

If Rachel seems a little concerned during this scene, it's probably largely the fact that she's not the one big noting herself. For once, Quinn appears to have all the confidence, and it's a confidence that doesn't really rely on Quinn pulling someone else down. This seems a good time for Rachel to encourage a little girl talk.

Rachel: So... secret girl's business? What's it like to be you?
Quinn: I have a warped view of the world. It's awesome.
Rachel: My warped world view comes with a very different effect to yours...
Quinn: I can get away with everything!
Rachel: How about getting pregnant?
Quinn: Hmm? I didn't quite here that?
Rachel: Getting kicked off the Cheerios? Twice?
Quinn: Missed it again. Huh, they have really bad acoustics in here. Oh look, there's the doctor!
Doctor: Are we ready to give you completely needless surgery?
Rachel: Ah... no... *looks to Quinn*
Quinn: It appears we haven't sung about it yet. You understand.
Doctor: I'm sorry. I didn't really hear a word you said because I was so distracted by your wonderful nose.
Quinn: It happens :)

Unlike Finn and Quinn later on, Quinn and Rachel manage to have a conversation here that doesn't involve the third one of their love triangle, thus fostering more of my secret little Quinn-and-Rachel-both-toss-Finn-aside-and-fall-into-each-others'-arms 'ship.

I also love this sequence, and the song, because it's how I imagine their OOC life is. There are so many pictures out there of the two of them together, but I think this is the first song they have sung together that was only the two of them. Also, Rachel didn't over sing quite so much while singing against Quinn. Brava all these things!!!

Okay, so, Santana is my favorite pairing all on her own, and there was such a lot of Santana in this episode. Like when Karofsky's trying to assert his non-gayness through noticing Sam's jeans, not his ass.

Santana: Like that's any less gay.

Exact quote. Yo.

Actually, everything she says in this scene is like the writers wrote up the parody I could have written if they'd been less on the ball. I can do no better. The future that "Auntie 'Tana" paints out for him is another thing I want to write, in a future fic that may or may not include their mutual beard-status.

Ah, here we go, the next conversation between Quinn and Finn where Rachel is unable to be extricated from their relationship. What I find more distracting than this, however, is the truly amazing set up they have of having this conversation through the eye-hole at the back of their lockers, all the way through to the confused look on Finn's face just before he closes his at the end.

I know that the pause at the end of Finn / Mike's dance sequence is another punchline for Finn's dancing but... I really love his dancing here. There's a part of me that can't help but see the gawky man he was at the beginning of the show and appreciate how far he's come. This sequence really portrays the best of this. Also appreciated is how different this song is from his usual repertoire, ya know, right up to Finn's raising his hands at the end of the song. Kinda ruined it for me.

Bleach your freckles. Ahhhh. That makes so much more sense than bleach your knuckles, which is what i heard the first time.

Does anyone see the beginning of Karofsky's speech as sounding like an introduction at an AA meeting? I love when Santana starts mouthing along with him and you figure out why it's so stilted from Karofsky's mouth. But yeah, despite these things, I found the whole thing a little unrealistic. The line "I know I'll need to earn back your trust" kinda make me want to puke more than when Santana stepped up and held his hand. I lived for the moment when Kurt calls him out and Karofsky reacts with some of his own personality again.

Puck being in the girls' bathroom but, more, the fact that he drilled a "peephole" in the wall so he could see when no one was going. This is both disgusting and hilarious, which is Puck all over. If anyone is a broken record, then that's Puck with his "hot Jew" business but somehow I can forgive him that too. The fact that the Glee club has deemed Puck the most likely to get her to the mall, over Kurt or any of the girls who could have come into the restroom, says something about their relationship that I want to infer. This scene also leads us neatly into my favorite scene, and my favorite screen shot, as pictured above!! Lines like what Puck says here make me imagine how amazing a person he's going to grow up to be.

Next scene:

Puck: Why are we all standing out here? We have the right number of Glee club members to make a team. And what about that piano just sitting there in the yard? That guy with the guitar over there? And those violins?
Mercedes: Kurt's back!
Sam: Well that explains why all this stuff is here instead of the auditorium.
Kurt: I'm back!!
All Other Students: *cheers and applause*
Sam: Hang on, wait. I thought Glee club was meant to be unpopular.
All Other Students: ......
Merecedes: Now there's a reason we're meeting here today.
Blaine: You didn't think I'd let you go so easily, did you?
Kurt: <3 <3 I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go.

Actually no, this scene is much more slashy than this. It went a little more like this:

Blaine: I'll still get to have you after school and on the weekends.

Oh yes. Another direct quote. :D

All mocking aside, perfect song choice. I cried at Kurt/the Warblers, my first time getting teary over Glee, but smiling all the time. I love that Kurt's first song back was Barbara, putting him straight back in with Rachel; another lead into the scene coming next. Actually, all the songs in this episode were stunning. I'm sad I've only been able to find 5 of them. I've been struck dumb by this song both times I've watched it now. Kurt really pulled out all the stops on this one. Every time they pan out into the corridor at the end of this, I expect to see Karofsky standing out there, the outsider.

And, if this had been a normal lengthed episode, this would have been the ending. However, we get 15 extra minutes this week!

Is it bad that when Lauren called Quinn 'Lucy', I thought for a second she was speaking in really bad taste and was referring to the state of her after having given birth? I love it every time they open up Quinn's character. Sorry, Lucy Q's character (:D). I have a question, though. Lauren guessed Quinn's old nickname was Juicy Lucy before she finished her conversation with Quinn. The posters were already on the notice board by then, so how is it that it says Lucy Caboosey on the poster? Just one of the things Continuity Guy didn't manage pick up that day.

Puck / Rachel!!! The only thing I don't like about this scene is that Puck is replaced by Kurt so early. However, the expression on Puck's face as he puts on the jukebox, followed by the little dance he does a bit later, more than makes up for it. For all of my private canon, I like Rachel and her relationships with Kurt and Mercedes that much better when she's single.

And ooooh the flash mob!!! I LOVE it when they do this. This scene is only made more awesome by the fact that it is a real thing that happens, not something in Artie's imagination. :D :D :D

That Lauren apologises is but one of the reasons she is my favorite character. Come on, she's a bitch, but she's the one keeping it real.

Santana / Brittany / Lebonese = 'nuff said. Another scene where I wouldn't change a line.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed by their tees that summarised the glee club's weekly project, but that could also be because I had so much love for every other scene in this episode. Their dancing was good though, which was the concern before Finn knocked Rachel over. Don't know when they managed to practice with everything else that went on, but good for them!

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Justine Robson - Keeping It Real

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:15:33 GMT

I work in a sci-fi / fantasy specialist bookshop so, it shouldn't come as a surprise, I tend to end up giving recommendations of books to read to friends of mine fairly often. Especially when they are visiting from Canberra. Especially when they are living with us in our house ;)

A couple of months ago, I gave such a recommendation to ingysledge which, in turn, gave her an idea of the kinds of books I might like.

Now, I don't like sci-fi. Fantasy is more my thing and reasons such as greater character development and aspects of romance, as opposed to machinery and technology, are my reasons. However, when Ingrid suggested Keeping It Real by Justine Robson, I decided I'd give it a go.

For the first 50 pages, I was having moments of "Oh, yeah this isn't so bad.... hah, that line was actually quite good! ... don't know why I'm still reading this book really... oh, there's a reason. Pity the whole book isn't like this". I likewise suffered to about page 100, and here was where the cartoon light turned on above my head.

145 pages in, I looked down to the page number to realise, with some surprise, that I hadn't put the book down in almost 50 pages. This shit just got really good.

What is this book about? Well, it's probably going to come as a real fucking surprise to see that I like faery fiction. The premise of the Quantum Gravity series, of which Keeping It Real is just the first, is that a bomb some time in the not too distant future has gone off and disintegrated all of the barriers between Earth, or Otopia as it is now called, and other realms, including the faery realm, the elvish realm, the demon realm and that of the elementals. Oh, and our main character is a cyborg.

I now think, given I know how the end of the book rounds off, that the first 100 pages are going to improve immensely through knowing what is about to happen and seeing all the signs of foreboding in the text.

To my excitement, I realised that this was not just a trilogy, but a first book in a series of five so far that have been released. To my disappointment, however, this first book is not a stand alone. For sure, it ties up many of the loose ends but, for the characters, there are many openings left to be explored in later books.

So, as today is a public holiday and the public libraries are not open, I am suffering to write down my thoughts of the book I currently have, and making plans in the direction of the local library tomorrow afternoon.

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Skins (UK)

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:03:19 GMT

I seem to be doing a fairly good job, so far, of documenting where it is that I'm getting my inspiration for actual and projected scenes, even if it is from UK Skins watching with priortodeath today.

I make it no secret that I love the character of Effy Stonem. So, it's equally possible that I'm indulging in a mini Effy photo post here... which has also inspired an idea for a scene that isn't going to be written anytime before tomorrow.

And some prose: "I'm the one who gets to have the fucking breakdown," James said, his voice low and angry. "That's how it works. Your job is to hold it together, and I kill people, and I fuck, and I do all sorts of evil shit that you don't have to think about."

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Samael, Bones, Dark - (original fiction)

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 05:14:09 GMT

Lead-in to this journal entry here

Samael shrugged his shoulders in the new body that had been tied to him, tied to his essence. The usual menagerie was not here. Bones had made sure of that.

"I only count one bone woman here, and it certainly isn't any one of you," she'd announced to a room that consisted of Eddie, Arize, Hunter, Vic and Dark.

Danika, behind a smirk she didn't do a lot to hide, dared ask idly, "Why's he get to come along?"

Bones had looked at Dark, then answered, "He's a guardian."

Now Samael stood, with only Bones and Dark, pondering the body they had given him while the guardian and the bone woman watched on.

"It doesn't feel any different."

Bones tipped her head to the side, looking at him with no small amount of irony. "Well, of course it doesn't feel any different. You're still here, aren't you?"

Samael looked down at himself, almost expecting to see parts of his body become suddenly transparent. When that didn't happen, he looked back up at Bones and Dark. "I'm still here," he agreed, with one short nod.

Bones snorted. "Not here, you idiot. Here." She waved her arm around, indicating everything around them, the graveyard and beyond. "In the underground."

Samael blinked. "And your point?" he asked.

When Bones sighed and rolled her eyes, Dark decided to take this one. "Believe me. You'll notice a difference when you go topside."

Samael's eyes narrowed in on Dark. There was a certain resemblance between the two men, if one looked to tall, dark and handsome as amounting to a certain resemblance. Although Danika had helped define why Dark had come along with them, Samael couldn't find it in him to actually like the other guardian. The guardian. Samael supposed he didn't count among that number any longer.

He looked aside from Dark, not to concede a victory to the taller man, but caught within his own thoughts.

"Come." Bones' voice struck him again, causing Samael's eyes to lift once again. "It's not that bad. You can go to the human world soon and, for the first time, actually walk up to your beloved."

That sentence would once have brought a smile to his face, purpose and protective instinct to his stature. Lynette's other guide had sent messages here often enough that let him know she was still safe, still there, even without ongoing Samael's guidance during his quest for a corporeal body. It wasn't that which struck a chord of nervousness in him.

A furrow developed between Samael's brows at that 'chord of nervousness' but, before he could articulate his thoughts, Dark spoke again.

"Things are gonna be real different for you from now on. You're not Sidhe anymore. Not just Sidhe. That part of your life is over." With a glance at Bones, he added, "That's the thing that's gonna take more getting used to than the body, I reckon."

Bones shrugged a shoulder, nodding her head in agreement. "I told you that before," she said simply.

"Yeah." Samael's jaw tightened, loosened, then tightened again. "Yeah, you did."

Dark gave him a moment to compose himself, then took in a deep breath. "We'd best get this thing going, if we're going to. Do you know where you want to pop out?"

"Pop... out?"

"Topside. Which city is she in?" When Samael hesitated, Dark's voice turned very droll. "Can't direct you to her if I don't know where I'm directing."

This time, Samael maintained eye contact with Dark for a good long time. "Melbourne," he acceded, finally.

"Good." Dark held an arm out to Bones. "Let's get going, shall we?"

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Times you realise your magic life is not appropriate to your actual life...

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:53:03 GMT

Sitting in the office of one of my university lecturers yesterday, I'm frantically scrambling to write down notes towards all the comments she's giving me on my essay outline for Tennyson's 'Lady of Shallot'.

There's a pause. Either she's gathering her thoughts or she's waiting for me to catch up with my note taking. I don't really care which one as I'm using the time to scribble down the end of my last thought before she starts talking again.

"You're going to have to explain why the Tower does not signify change..."

And then my mind does something like this:

.... before tuning in again to realise that what she's actually talking about is a comparison between the tower and Camelot in 'The Lady of Shallot', also known as the topic I'm writing my essay on.

I thank god that the only thing that signalled this break in my concentration was my pen pausing over the piece of paper I was writing on, before kick-starting back into note taking.

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True Blood

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:21:06 GMT

Oh yes, that's right. I wandered off to watch the first season of True Blood with my isabelle_tea and remembered how amazing Alexander Skarsgard is and also how amazing he is particularly in this scene:

And now, of course, seek to take the situation and find a way to re-write it.

Edit: And also, just cause - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sys-Wn3nlU
True Blood: Season 4 "Waiting Sucks" Eric (HBO)

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James, Tasha, Sebastian - (original fiction)

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:15:55 GMT

"Trash. Trash. Rubbish." Things were flying over James' shoulder and into the doorway of the room behind him, even as Tash sat calmly in that room, on a beanbag, and flicking through a glossy magazine that had been one of the first items James had thrown out of the room he'd claimed as his.

They were settling in well here. All things considered. Daniel had, of course, cased the house for places that might need guarding against. Then, around five minutes later, Sebastian had done the same thing. Tash had no doubt that, given another ten minutes, and once he was done throwing things out of his room and into hers, James would suddenly realise he'd not yet cased the place and would remedy that.

While that happened, Tash would move everything he'd thrown in her room back into his without lifting a finger. Sometimes, it was good to be a witch.

Somehow, she had the idea that Bri wasn't adjusting so well as the rest of them. It might have been that the blonde just hadn't seen as much as the rest of them. Even as she flicked on through pages of her magazine, her mind reviewed the merry band she'd come to ally herself with. Daniel had seen enough to be a smart ass, even though he was merely human. As far as Tash could see, there seemed to be a silent pissing contest between Daniel and James that Daniel still seemed to think he could win.

Sebastian was definitely the brains out of the men. Well, not so much brains. James demonstrated brains on occasion. Particularly in plans that involved himself getting out of situations scot free. Sebastian was the brains behind figuring out what the rest of them might do.

Bri still seemed as though the whole vampire world was a mystery to her. Not surprising as she'd barely been a vampire six months so far. Coming here via the underground must have been a real treat for her. She'd give the girl till later on in the night before trying to approach her about it.

As for her, she had her own reasons why she'd left her home town and come on this jaunt with a group of vampires and their human. But if she had to define it, she'd probably say...

Coming to the end of her glossy mag, Tash delicately removed herself from her beanbag As she started on down the hall to see what the rest of the house was up to, she stopped idly by James' bedroom door.

"Try getting into my mind again? You're going to find all manner of strange things start crawling their way into your head."

James had stopped muttering under his breath and throwing things from his room into hers some time ago. In answer to her accusation, he turned slowly to look her up and down. He wasn't even attempting an innocent fascade. Instead, he gave her a special smile that did not make it even halfway up to his eyes. "Looking forward to it," he answered, with a dare-devil glint.

Tash turned away from his room, made it to the end of the hall where Sebastian was in the process of pouring himself a drink. While she plonked herself on the couch and kicked her legs up over one side, she called out to him, "I thought you said you were going to keep a better leash on your brother."

Sebastian turned aside from the bar -well, dresser, but they had already begun to stock it like a bar- and gave Tasha his whole attention. His eyes were kind of lazy as he considered Tash's request. Really, they'd only been here about two hours. "What's he done now?" he asked, with the world-weary voice of one who has been tied to an unruly twenty-three year old brother for the better part of half a century.

Tasha heaved a sigh. "Tried to get into my mind. Didn't get very far. Obviously. I think I need a drink to make myself feel better about the whole thing."

Sebastian hesitated, then turned back to the bar where there were beverages that were people-friendly, not just vampire-friendly.

"What would you like?" he asked.

"Mm, scotch and soda. Do we have soda?"

Sebastian shook his head. "Guess you'll have to just make do with scotch."

Tasha's lipstick darkened lips twitched in mirth. "Oh, damn."

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