Off the Cliff

Stayed up to 2 last night reading an old semi-formatted Eroica fic from 1995. Left a bad taste in the mouth for Reasons, most of which had to do with the fact that I wasn't writing it for my own pleasure but to try to appeal to the Eroica slash fandom. Whoever was talking over on tumblr about the early days of fandom and the joy of being all thieves together in this pocket universe that only fans knew about is, well, maybe that's the fandom she knew. I just kept running into gatekeepers with a rigid definition of what's permissible-- like that other famous essay that likened slash fandom to a potluck where everyone wound up bringing hummous because that's what was expected when you brought stuff to a potluck.

It was such a relief when there started to be yaoi fandoms over here because there were no rules in yaoi.

This is doubly odd because my comfort reading for the past six weeks has been another unfinished Eroica story that I started in 1996, worked at with increasing difficulty through '97 and '98, and gave up because I wanted it to be yaoi-- and as far as it went, it certainly was-- but Eroica fans wanted it to be slash, which it wasn't and couldn't be. I thought it a hot mess when I finally dropped it but now it reads better than any other of my Dorians including the ones I sweated blood to give a plot to.

Of course, now I skip the sex scenes because the hormoneless don't see the point of them, which leads to the odd experience of reading a yaoi fic, which is all about the sex, but skipping the sex when it happens. Such are the paradoxes of age.

The cure for being earwormed by sea shanties is to be earwormed by Renaissance dance music, especially the ones with what I think (vague memories from medieval dramas 50 odd years ago) are shawms and psalteries. (Youtube agrees on the shawms but nobody seems to actually play a psaltery, just tell you in excruciating detail how to do it.)

Gin arrives, courtesy of those charming Japanese. So that's alright.

Got into my old Word files on the computer, as in 'mid to late 90s' old. Thus spent the afternoon in 25 years ago, which was odd. Odder is having to remind me that 25 years ago was 1996, not 1995. Evidently I don't believe 2020 counts as a year, just as I didn't believe the five years I lived in Japan counted. Was consistently five years out in my time reckoning until well into the teens of this decade.

Yesterday's dank and heavy turned into last night's dank and uneasy. Couldn't sleep at all. At last turned on light and for no good reason, rousted out one of my long ago id-fics from Papuwa fandom and reacquainted myself with it. Fic, if left long enough alone, works as well as smells to bring another time vividly back to life. How long ago and other-universe the mid-90s were, and how much I'd forgotten the fact.

Don't think this has anywhere more to go. A series of vignettes started over three years ago after reading Calvino's Invisible Cities, and incorporating at least one long-ago prompt from an ad for Istanbul tourism.
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So telophase has created a random prompt generator focusing on fantasy art. If I had a brain I would at once grab that prompt "Your picture is of a dragon with a gift to give, wearing soft boots."

...except I think I already included it in the current unending WIP.

A Library ficlet, before incandescens can Joss my ideas further in book 3. Take as A/U.
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Invisible Library missing chapter, from a chapter which may, for all I know, no longer exist. ETA: spoilers for the Invisible Library series, obviously.
( In which Vale and Kai discuss verse forms )

A week late, but creativity won't be held to schedules. This is the 31_days prompt for May 11: gumusservi (moonlight shining on water)
( Actually that story is apocryphal )

1. Must get back on ginkgo biloba. Not only forgot to get a summary of my drug expenses from the pharmacy for the accountant (they were a pittance compared with '12's expensive meds, but still), I forgot to include my property taxes. I was keeping them very carefully because I need them for you know that thing. Yes: income tax. Mind still can't parse that: 'you keep them for the accountant.' Oh but surely it's the... uh insurance agent? Granted I've had insurance on the brain, but I recognize this mental fog only too well.

2. Biking home one day I discovered that the laneway in back of the house is now called Perly Family Lane. Assumed this was a vanity name scheme but it seems the city is using it partly to direct ambulances and the like. (Vanity names would generate revenue, I merely mention.) So I was charmed, out walking the other day, to discover Crestfallen Lane running off my street. Assumed it had something to do with the angle of the terrain as it winds down to Christie Pits, a glacier gouge to the south of us: though in fact the sloping n-s lane Crestfallen runs into is still unnamed. Turns out it's named after a very useful horse. I salute you, Crestfallen.
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*Someone* is a flipping genius. I forget when it is we find out who, but until then:

Guest Column, a Matthew Swift fic by someone who is channeling Kate Griffin.

Thanks to yumiyoshi for the heads up.

nekonexus wrote me a Goujun story. Stunning images, delicately edged characterization, and resonances that tickle at the mind as, yes, fish in a pond brush over the skin.

"But in the Ocean, he speaks the language of the waves, he knows how to see through what obscures others' vision."

"Non-attachment is a difficult thing for a dragon." Mh, yeah. It would be.

And this, which I love:

"...he hears the koi speak. Swifter than thought, they tell each other tales of what passes Below. Their voices jumble over each other - each one distinct, each one a thread in a cacophonic melody of imperfect harmonies. Each swish of a fin, each ripple, each breath through their gills - it is all a part of the story."

No, I *will* not say 'we are a tale told by a carp' but, well, the idea is there too. "... or a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher."

Story is based on the seal script Confucian passage in this picture, whose text was so painstakingly unravelled by lovely friends in this entry.

NB Link takes you to the whole entry because there are other fics in there worth reading.

lady_ganesh posts Gaiden fic. When did Gaiden fic become nostalgia? I wrote one just last year. But it seems to belong to some infinite long ago, eight years and more past. Happy sunny days of '01, or at most '06.

Here though the world explode, these four survive*
And it is always two thousand and five.

(*for certain values of 'survive')

At least there are now details on Tenpou's men.

Fic bit. Under the cut. The *html'd* cut because lj's rich text format is foutu beyond expressing.

No idea what happens next, is why it's a ficbit and not a fic.
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All this talk of Dorian reminds me of my first Dorian story, A Garden in Paris. And then in a burst of utter brilliance, I think 'Wonder if there's a Streetview for the Rue Galande?' There is. And it's as narrow as I'd hoped. The only problem is that all the buildings are at least four storeys if not five or six, not the three I put in, and of course each floor is a separate apartment with no interior stair cases. Ah well, poetic licence: I wrote the thing in Tokyo and picked a likely looking street off a map.

(The fomatting of the story is a mess. I'd hand code a cleaner version but seem unable to find a way to do search and replace on whatever Word's marker for italic is, so as to convert it to < em >. Someone said it could be done but neglected to mention how. All I can discover is how to turn italics into bold or whatever, which is no help.)

The old 'pick ten charas and answer the questions' as modified by flo_nelja, and hopefully translated correctly.

Step 1 : pick a fandom.
Step 2 : make a list of your 10 favourite characters.
Step 3 : click on the cut and answer the questions!

( Questions and Saiyuki/ Gaiden )

This started as a 31_days fic for a prompt now long past. Might still do for last Friday's: 'error and truth are uncertainly blended.' Otherwise, is a Woxin fic. Series gen, more or less, and not the A/U. Inspired by looking back at January '08 posts and those 38 comment squee-fests over ep 16.
( Crucibles )

One must write to write, she says grimly. This is for nojojojo. I know it doesn't scan; I am not Shakespeare.
( Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off )

Ah, paleaswater's birthday hard on the heels of the Mid-autumn festival. Happy birthday, paleaswater!

The fic prompts at 31_days this month come from Issa's haiku. Today's is an obvious one for Gaiden.

Title: Half remembered names and faces
Day/Theme: October 3- There are no strangers under cherry blossoms
Series: Saiyuuki Gaiden
Character/Pairing: Goujun and acquaintance
Rating: G
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Mhh. Picking up the Woxin fic. When we last saw our heroes Gou Jian's fortunes had changed for the better-- maybe-- and Fu Chai was preparing to debate politics with him-- maybe.

And debate politics they did until I finally arrived at something that remotely resembled action.

31_days Woxin AU
Title: Mexican standoff
Day/Theme: August 21: when you open up your wings to speak
Series: Woxinchangdan
Character/Pairing: Gou Jian, Fu Chai
( Now read on )

It's cheering to know that when I'm doing my head-desky 'OK, his name is' (pick someone at random) 'Guan Yu and his uhh courtesy name (takes a while to figure out what a courtesy name is) is Yunchang (雲長) only sometimes it's Changsheng (長生) until he dies when he becomes Marquis Zhuangmou (and let's skip the string of Buddhist names entirely) but for our purposes he's Lord Guan (關公), or Lord Guan the Second (關二爺-- but who's the first?) or else 'Snazzy Beard, Man' (美髯公, and now I see that qwerty really wasn't kidding about that one.) He's apparently even 'Emperor Guan' on occasion except I don't think he ever made it to Emperor...'
( Are you still with me? )

Because limelight-shunning qwerty never makes new posts to showcase the awesome drabbles and ficlets and artwork she does on request, one must make posts for her.

So here she was asking for icons to fic about, and I responded with the one up there, and she responded with: ( what's under the cut )

Title: By a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney
Day/Theme: April 5. 'trying to build a tower out of custard'
Series: Woxinchangdan
Character/Pairing: Fu Chai, Fan Li, various ministers
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Even though this computer makes noises like a 747 taking off when I run Word (and only Word.)

Title: Under/cover
Day/Theme: March 16. I’ll keep the lights out, I’ll tell you fairy tales
Series: Woxinchangdan
Character/Pairing: Fan Li, Fu Chai

( A different game of chess )

Title: 吳清源時代 (Age of Wu's clear streams)
Day/Theme: Sat Feb.14 - Blindness and desire
Series: Woxin Changdan AU cont'd
Character/Pairing: Fu Chai, Gou Jian
( These long drawn out games of go )

Title: What each man harbours in his heart
Day/Theme: Mon Feb.9 - Scalded by the fire of the great moon
Series: Woxin Changdan AU cont'd
Character/Pairing: Fu Chai, Gou Jian

I grow old, I grow old-- or the double entendres in the prompt line would never have escaped my notice until this moment. My only excuse is that Fu Chai isn't yet allowing himself to think consciously about the attractions of Gou Jian's mhh full-of-the-moon.

( In which Fu Chai and Gou Jian are at the crossest of cross purposes )