sakurazuka_jae

Had the day off today but was recovering from a cold so decided to spend it doing as little as possible. The weather obliged in assisting with this by being rainy and cold so I spent a lot of time in front of the TV. I'd caught a few minutes of the latest series of True Blood on TV earlier in the week and decided maybe it was time to try watching it again so I rented the first series, thinking that at least this way I could skip all the sex and nudity (I love, love, LOVE the book series and was looking forward to the show until I watched the first ten minutes of the first episode. Then I turned it off in a hurry).

I also decided I would work on my own DVD backlog, which reminded me I hadn't even checked the second season of Forever Knight I picked up last year. So I watched a couple of episodes of that too.

After comparing the first two episodes of True Blood to the first two episodes of S2 Forever Knight I am STUNNED at how much better Forever Knight is. It's been a long time since I watched it, so I'd forgotten how good it was and how much I enjoyed it. It's just... better. The characters are better. The plotlines are better. The frigging vampire effects are better (even the terribly lame "flying" scenes).

( Cold-medicine rambling begins )

Dear RPGs,

Why must you keep disappointing me? Blue Dragon, I was actually okay with you, because you were a fairly standard game and the storyline was at least mildly interesting. But crashing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIRST PART of final boss fight, BEFORE I got to a save point? NOT COOL! I do not have another 2 hours to complete the final section of the Primitive Cube again, so I will be watching the ending on Youtube. You suck.

But it's not entirely your fault, BD. I've been unhappy ever since FFXIII and I went our separate ways (Pssst... SquareEnix, for future reference, when the reason I keep not being able to defeat the final boss is because I am literally falling asleep during the battles? NOT A GOOD SIGN. Seriously, I woke up and had been defeated. And I didn't care enough to finish. And when I watched the ending on Youtube, I was glad I didn't bother. FFXIII, you committed the ultimate sin any game can commit... you were boring. And after the disappointment that was most of KH2, too. All I can say is FFvsXIII had better damn well be good. It looks promising, but I've been fooled before).

I will next be moving on to Fable 3, once I have gotten the bad taste out of my mouth. I enjoyed Fables 1 & 2, so I am hoping for something good here. (OTOH, I also enjoyed FFs 7-12, so just because there has been a great run does not guarantee anything, but I am cautiously optimistic).

It just feels weird that the best RPG I have played in the last 3 years has been about the bizarre dreams of a dying composer. Eternal Sonata, thank you. You were an awesome game, with a great (if bananas) plot, fantastic characters (especially you, Chopin, I totally fell in love with you), a BRILLIANT battle system, and some of the most gorgeous graphics I have ever seen. If I had a PS3, I would go out of my way to buy that version of the game too, just for the bonus chapters. We'll always have Poland.

Love to you, ES, and no love to the rest of you. And finally, to those gaming companies out there who have been resting on your laurels... STOP RESTING!!!

J.

... but in fact you have just made it far, far worse:

The scene: Midnight. It is very, very dark and quiet. My dear husband (DH) arrives home.

DH: That was a fright. When I was parking, I saw this really big black dog sprawled on the footpath outside our house.
Me: Mmm?
DH: I thought it had been hit by a car, because the limbs were all over the place and it wasn't moving at all.
Me: Oh no!
DH: But then I got closer, and realised that it had buttons for eyes!
Me: AAAAGGGGHHH!!!
DH: Huh?
Me: That's actually WORSE!!!

Let the record show that DH hasn't read or seen Coraline.

Attention: Whoever has lost their stuffed black dog in our street, would you PLEASE take it away, as I just saw it and it is freaking me out now. And then I laugh at myself. And then I remember the eyes...

This was written for the current onepieceyaoi100 prompt: Ace, but massively failed the word count limit. I did also write another piece which actually met the word limit (sorta). The link to that story is provided below.

Title: They Would Live For Now
Rating: G
Word Count: 965 (epic fail)
Pairing: Ace/Smoker
Setting: Divergent future: the events at Impel Down ended differently.
Warnings: Spoilers for current events in the manga
Disclaimer: Not mine.

( Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer )

And the other fic:

Title: You Were Loved
Rating: PG (swearing)
Word Count: 300
Pairing: OMC -> Ace, implied Marco/Ace
Summary: Luffy and co weren't the only non-Whitebeard pirates who wanted to save Ace.
Warnings: Spoilers for current events in the anime (and older events in the manga)
Disclaimer: Not mine.

I'm gonna get him back!

... I'm not dead yet.

Just really busy. And not terribly inspired to write much. There have been a couple of pieces done this year though, so here they are for anyone still hanging around:

One Piece (shock, horror)

Title: Choose
Rating: G
Characters: Garp (Ace and Luffy mentioned)
Word Count: 108
Warning: Spoilers for recent events in the manga.

And what's the first thing that comes out when I try to get back into writing? Garp angst. Yeesh.

Choose

Title: Obedience
Rating: PG-15 (for mentions of animal abuse)
Characters: Bepo, Trafalgar Law
Word count: 690

Summary: Before Bepo met Trafalgar Law, he was taught obedience. (An attempt at Bepo origin-fic.)

Obedience

Sherlock (my new addiction)

Title: Selfish, Selfless
Rating: M
Characters: Harry Watson, John Watson, Mycroft Holmes
Word count: 5,100 (approx)
For a prompt on sherlockbbc_fic. Full prompt: "Angst. John's older sister has been an addict since she was old enough to reach the liquor cabinet of their father and the pill bottle on their mother's bedside. And when she was under the influence, she'd do horrible things to baby John."

Selfish, Selfless

And finally, amongst all of this angst:

Sherlock/One Piece Crossovers!!! (because I apparently have some sort of weird compulsion to cross One Piece with everything)

Two minifills for another sherlockbbc_fic prompt. One is a microfill. Neither gets a title. Both can be found here:
One Piece/Sherlock crossovers

And there just might be a third one if I can ever get it down on paper. Text. Word document. Whatever.

Hope everyone is doing well. And I also hope I can remember enough of how lj works to get this all posting properly. :-P

Welcome to my livejournal! It's primarily used for me to keep in touch with friends, read fanfiction, and post my own fanfic, but occasionally I will comment randomly about my life as well. I don't have a friending policy, because that would involve being organised, so feel free to friend and/or introduce yourself at any point.

Fic WIP List

Note: These are all stories that I will DEFINITELY finish.

* One Piece – Justice (two-thirds written)
* One Piece – untitled Ace and Smoker fic (slightly over halfway done)
* One Piece - various Straw Hat Crew Version Two fics (half a dozen started, one or two finished)
* Prince of Tennis – Meet the In-Laws, next in the Prince and the Pauper series
* Fullmetal Alchemist – FMA/Muppets crossover (Complete!)
* Ranma ½ – Catalyst (estimated four or so chapters left to go, have probably written about one and a half chapters worth of scenes)
* Irresponsible Captain Tylor – In Vino Veritas (mostly complete)

Unsure List

Note: These are stories that are all started, but may never see the light of day, although I would very much like them to.

* Prince of Tennis – AU Ryoma at Fudoumine story (over 16,000 words written, no end in sight)
* One Piece – crack Zoro origin fic
* Fullmetal Alchemist – untitled Ed gets sick story (half-written, stuck)
* Detective Conan – Hidden Truth (7,000 words written, not sure where it's going)
* Detective Conan – the Uneasy Alliance series, a continuance of the Universe begun in Fight or Flight and Uneasy Alliance (bits written, lots of ideas)

These are by no means all of my story ideas; I have many others floating around that may or may not get tackled, but these two lists represent the ones that will definitely be completed, and the ones that are most likely to get done after those. Everything else is in the "maybe/maybe not" category, so I won't tease you with them.

If you're curious about one in particular, reply to this post and identify it (one only, please), and I'll reply with a snippet from it.

Guess who just set the land-speed record for going onto domestic sick leave as quickly as possible after coming off maternity leave? Today was MiniJ's first day at creche. Tomorrow I was to return to work.

2.45 today the phone rings. "Hi, this is the creche. I'm afraid MiniJ has conjunctivitis, please come and pick him up."

Sigh.

So, because I haven't written in a while again, in an effort to kick-start some creative juices, I wound up tackling a meme I grabbed from vikki:

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or less whatever length damn well pleases you for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

1) Roronoa Zoro (One Piece)
2) Zack Fair (Final Fantasy 7 and various offshoots)
3) Watanuki Kimihiro (xxxholic)
4) Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist)
5) Kenpachi Zaraki (Bleach)
6) Ichihara Yuuko (xxxholic)
7) Koiwai Yotsuba (Yotsuba)
8) Nico Robin (One Piece)
9) Kendappa-oh (RG Veda)
10) Yin (Darker than Black)

( For those who care to see the result )

Hello all. No, this LJ has not been abandoned, although I'd totally understand you thinking so. Basically I've had some major life changes recently, the big one being that I became a mother, and, well, everything else just fell by the wayside.

However, I recently noticed that I was coming up to nearly a year of inactivity, and decided that that would be a good deadline for me to use to actually get some stuff completed. So at the bottom of the post is the ridiculously-long-in-development fic Fullmuppet Alchemist. You can go skip to that now if you don't care about my life, I won't be upset. :-)

( And so, here is the state of the me: )

( Fullmetal Alchemist/Muppet Show crossover: Fullmuppet Alchemist )

Thanks for reading, comments, complaints and criticism welcome. Now I have to go rescue one of my books from the baby. Bye!

For how long should one keep old letters?

I went through a big penpal phase in my early-mid teens, and while clearing out a whole bunch of stuff today came across a box of old letters which I've been hauling around with me for some years. Going through them I find myself at a loss. Most of these people I can't even remember, and on average I received about 2-5 letters from each person until one or the other of us stopped writing (teenagers remember: short attention span. Also snail mail). There are a couple of treasured friends in there whose letters I will definitely keep, but on the whole I can see no real reason to keep a bunch of letters from people I briefly corresponded with nearly *coughmumble* years ago. Old diaries are one thing, but old letters?

Thoughts?

Title: Neko-Jita (Cat Tongue)
Author: Jaelle
Series: One Piece
Rating: 18yrs and up
Warnings: Edgy, implied scenarios. (Yes, I know that's vague, but they're implied.) Some bondage and, uh, light sort-of torture (???). Look, it's not safe for work, okay?
Characters: Paulie, Lucci
Setting/Spoilers: Post Enies Lobby
Word count: 980
Disclaimer: None of them are mine, for which I am sure they are all devoutly grateful.

There have been some truly amazing CP9 fics lately, and this fic goes out to all the wonderful authors of them, particularly maldoror_gw, sans_pertinence and salmon_pink.

( Cats do so love to play with their food )