Streets are filled with --

While I scribble endlessly at Endless Fic, allow me to distract you with that which has distracted me.



Layer Cake, 1:40 of Craig/Gambon drug-dealer con-man awesomeness with a side-serving of Tom Hardy as a double-firsts Cambridge cocaine cutter. WHY ARE YOU EVEN STILL READING THIS?

Narratively and thematically it's an in-between the Coen Brothers and Snatch. Surprise, surprise! Because Snatch was produced by Director Matthew Vaughn, also of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame and - sort of/not really weirdly - Stardust. He's the reason why half this movie looks like amazing still photography.

I could make comments about how much I love the OST (STARSAILOR) asjklfjal and go on about dialects of English and how they make my head spin around in happy circles, but then I COULD PICSPAM LIKE THE SHALLOW, SHALLOW PERSON I AM RIGHT NOW:

( You really really really really want to click this link. )

Please go watch this film as I expire on the cutting room floor of its goodness.

\o\ things for today:

• Got a new microphone set = no more skype fail!
  
• Boss did not say "start from blank" re: draft 3! Boss also showing human side!
  
• Parents possibly taking us out for dinner!

/o\ things for today:

• Almost died buying new mic!
  
• Boss still wants edits! \o More rhetorically-driven education coming up at 9pm tonight!
  
• Sleeping at 7am and waking at 12pm = not good!
  

"Augh DO THIS NOW" things for today:

• [x] CSS fixes for friend
  
• [x] MORE DRAFTS
  
• [x] Pauper AU
  
• [x] Left Hand fic
  
• [] Potentially traumatising tentacle fic for the sake of Motivation and Crack Relief
  
• [x] Methos (Dude, dude, Peter Wingfield is born on my birthday (um, day, not year) and shares my strange watch wearing habits! This makes me ridiculously excited! For happy, mindless, fangirly reasons! SPRINGTIME OF MY YOUTH.)
  

"Augh DO THIS BEFORE YOU LEAVE ON WEDNESDAY" things:

• [] Layout draft to sister_coyote
  
• [] Layout draft to mjules
  
• [x] MAKE SITE GO LIVE. SEE SITE RUN, RUN SITE RUN
  

Time to chug the caffeine.

Though maybe only after some sleep.

While I'm working on a) prompts, b) not getting beheaded by work and c) putting things down on my diary like "take over the world", "write your first short story or novel", "find someone to commission that painting you have in your head" and "de-entrail the neighbours" (guess which are real!), I leave a few recs lying about to compensate for my Paul Bettany-afflicted rabidity. I love inventing new words, god, "rabidity"...


Antique Bakery

I watched two episodes of the anime and was not initially impressed, but by the time I hit the main stride of the series you could not have pried me off of it with a crowbar. It's as though the animators thought, "hey, let's make the first 2 eps really yaoi-cliche-like, and then beat everyone up with the sheer awesomeness of the characterisation for the rest of the anime."

Fools and their Money by treneka - oh jesus. Tachibana's a hard enough character to understand, much less write, and trenaka has him down so perfectly that I weep and roll around in the sugary goodness of her confection. Actually, everyone is brilliant in this piece - Ono is as mild and acidic as he could ever be in canon, Chikage is heart-warming and heart-breaking, and oh, Kanda? I NOW QUOTE:

"Dolce - Doesn't that mean sweet?" Kanda asked, with a quick glare in Tachibana's direction.



Undertow by devikun. ALjsklfjaskljflasjflasjf lkasjf Tachibana/Ono that I CAN BELIEVE IN. There are not enough braincells left in me to make this rec any more wordy than it already is. Just. Just. Just go clicky and licky or something.



Omikuji by Tenika D. Says "manga only", but really, you can read it with just anime knowledge. Where do I even start? This is a Tachibana/Ono not lead by Ono, not dominated by Ono, and not Tachibana-warping. Tenika D underscores Tachibana's entire attitude to life in this fic, and then blows everything out of the water with the sheer amount of in-character hilarity, poignancy and austerity that she puts in. Everywhere. Like icing. On cupcakes.



Final Fantasy VII

Petronia's stuff. I request that you go read her and read her and read her and read her and then read her again. Shinra-centric!



Ouran

This fic by mercurial_wit. An OT-everyone, written in the most amazing, accurate and immensely un-melodramatic way you can imagine. You kind of want to read on how Kyouya'd answer the telephone or what Haruhi's make for dinner or how Tamaki's couch might look like in this universe after you finish the fic.



Yeah, um, if anyone had any illusions that I'd finally be writing? *BEAMS!*

So, who's the crazy person who has decided to give as many people on the flist a present as she can? I AM! *BEAMS* In the spirit of the new year and attempting to kick my ass back into action. I've taken what prompts you guys have given me over the last however-many-times-I-decided-to-click-previous-entries, and have spun what I can. Happy new year! ♥ from this side of the universe.

dnatio_memoriae generously donated her art skillz for a couple of these, and may be contributing more in the morning! IS THE WORLD NOT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE. OH YES, IT IS. ♥

( numinicious - Lucifer (Lucifer, postcard) )

( dnatio_memoriae: Baccano! (Luck, Claire, writing on the wall) )

( white_jenna: Final Fantasy VII (Tseng, cocktail napkin) )

( muse_lightning: nasdack FFVII AU (Tseng, Elena, post-its) )

( knightlineninja: Cowboy Bebop (Spike, short letter) )

( voksen: Baccano! (Czes, longhand letter) )

( logistika_nyx: nasdack AU (Elena/Tseng: he's full of wishful thinking) )

( misura: nasdack AU (Dark Nation, Rufus) )

If you feel you have been deprived a present, feel free to dump a prompt of any sort on me! After all, Chinese New Year (ha! coming from me, least traditional of people!) lasts a good long while, technically! :D Right now I am going to lean back in my seat and let my eyes explode for a while. ♥

Staking out a place at the beach in my local Coffee Bean outlet in order to force myself to study. Ridiculous, but true. Somehow, sitting at home only inspires me to write more things for logistika_nyx to chew on.

Microsoft Word refuses to believe that "forex" is a word. It is a word, and your stupid little programme relies on it more than you believe.

[x] Exchange rate notes
[x] Discover The Wonders of UCAS applications
[] Draft Estraven thing
[x] Drink your tea very, very slowly.
[x] Cycle home before it starts to pour.

[edit] I have an ability to concentrate that rivals a 5 year old's.

Studying, it eats me whole and makes me sweat, but it also makes me want to get up on my feet and destroy the world with huge chunks of information asfjlahsg keyboardsmash.

I want to do almost anything but revise right now; I want to write Tseng being unafraid and Sector 7ish, I want to write Dick being hugely angry and yet still bright, I want to write Bruce without the Wayne or the Batman, I want to write Reno as I first saw him walking over flowers with a magrod over his shoulder, I want (almost but not quite) to watch Estraven take the world down with him, freeze it up and make it Winter all over again.

Mostly I WILL DO THESE THINGS, but not until I eat my textbook.

Meanwhile, a shorter version of the above: memetime! Snagged off sister_coyote.

Pick a character that I have written -- or maybe even a character you could see me writing, if I know her -- then 5 numbers between 1 and 100. Comment with the character name and the five numbers, and I'll answer the five corresponding questions from this list.

For very best results, a character I've written more than once, as I have better headcanon the more I write someone, but I'll give other characters a shot. I'll take the same character more than once as long as the numbers are different.

My caveat lector is that my response to your question will probably not be standard-standard: the way I write a character fluctuates a whole lot, so the answers you get probably != the way characters are in any one of the fics I've done. 8D

[edit] Convenient happy fandom list (non-exhaustive): Final Fantasy VII/XII, Batman and family, Oceans and family, most of Tolkien, Fullmetal Alchemist, Baccano!, Samurai Champloo, most non-Earthsea Le Guin, Pratchett!

As I finish up some work with economics (oh god, that took me two days, this is evil) and fight my way through literature, a couple of fandom things, just for personal metamumbling.

( When I grow up, I want to be an antivillain antihero anti-goddamned-everything, ma! )

THAT WAS YOUR FIFTEEN MINUTE WAFFLE, BITCH; BACK TO WORK.

Must stop watching Justice League on study breaks must stop watching justice league on study breaks must stop watching justice league on study breaks

BATMAN SPEAKS LATIN

*ruined*

Oh, and have we mentioned this_is_crack, yet?

So, I'm doing everything but what I should be doing (studying, or writing). 8D A small, tiny icon batch, fuelled by my intense frustration at never having Tseng icons on hand. \o/

Preview:



More here at shifgrethor!

Also: logistika_nyx is awesome. Awesome beyond awesome beyond awesome. Awesome like burning.

Mmm, ficspam. Working on everything that I'm not meant to be working on, as usual.

[edit] Because I have no willpower whatsoever: Rufus/Tseng porn. Tseng's going to have one hell of a laundry bill.

( Personal ref of random blabbery ideas for the prompts I've got left to do \o/ ENGLISH IS NOT A LANGUAGE THAT I CAN SPREAK. Go ahead. Comment. I DARE YOU. )

Also, Iron Man fic rec of major amazingness: The Value of Secrets by Maya Tawi. Jarvis/Tony Stark. You know you want to.

Meanwhile, a FMA/Final Fantasy VII drabble of mine on IJ, linked to avoid 242904 Posts of Death on your flist. Zack and Hawkeye and dogs. Yes, dogs.

And then the real post:

Title: When The World Ends
Fandom: Baccano!/Ocean's 11
Characters: Claire; Rusty, Luck, Danny and Linus cameos
Rating: PG
Warnings: Crossover written for the No True Pair challenge over at IJ; prompt being: Rusty and Claire: it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. Genfic is the way to go, because I fail at plot and all that other cool stuff. D:
Summary: Playing poker until Armageddon.

2192 words and the epic failure of plot!sense. \o/

( Time for an old man to get to bed. )

Quick, you're all probably bored enough to reply if you're reading this (*g*) - Tseng and Lazard, yes/no? And while you're at it - which pairing/sort-of-pairing within the guts of Shinra presses your buttons? This is not me scuffing around for fic ideas, nope. LOOK OVER THAT WAY.

And also, anyone know if Tseng and Lazard have ever existed in the same fic before? The depths of FFVII community hell I am not brave enough to confront on a Monday night - any Shinra fics that you guys can rec to me?