Latest Perdido Street Station update: the ending was a bit...disappointing. Rather...bleak. Lin shouldn't have ended like that, and Kura'chai came out of nowhere. Isaac and Derkham ended rather abruptly, which annoys me a bit. And, Yagharek's ending, while immensely satisfying, was also very contrived.

Jack Half-a-Prayer: Hello, my name is Deus. Deus Ex, if you will.
Kura'chai: Call me Ishmael...I mean, Dea Ex.
Motely: D'arr.
Rudgutter: My eyes!
The Weaver: i am too fucking cool for this cool for you too cool in here turn up the heat the sweet sweet delicious and lascivious heat...
Slake-Moth #5: Aw, shite.
Duke of Hell: I had five minutes in the book, but I still got mentioned on the cover. Score!
Construct Council: My I's!
Tansell and Shadrach: Dude, we totally got screwed.
Penge: Did you *ever*.
Lem: But not as bad as me.
Tan and Shad: Pfft. Amateur.
Me: I want my soul back. *cry*

Damn you China Mieville, for killing off all the cool characters.

*cry* *sniffle* *woe* Damnit, I liked them before I found out they were gay! >_<

Also, having to go to class when there's only a hundred pages left? So not cool. At all. Seriously.

Oh, The OC. So much teen angst. So much homoerotic subtext. So much painful, painful angst.

I love this show.

OH MY GOD CHINA MIEVILLE, I WORSHIP YOU. WORSHIP WORSHIP WORSHIP.

Yes, I felt the need to put down the book and pick up the computer to write a gushing entry about Perdito Street Station. The plots and the world and the characters but mostly the plots, the many many wonderful interweaving plots.

And the Weaver and the Slake Moths and the Eyespy Killer and the Weaver and the scissors and Mr Motely and the slake moths and the dreamshit and the...*gushgushgush*

"But what about the ears?"
"I have no idea! He thought it made the Web prettier! Obviously!"

"I urge you to continue your fabric work, of which I find myself a great devotee."

Oh, Weaver. Big hard love, right there. Big. Hard. Love. I want a picture. With scissors. And oh, oh, Rescue and Derkham and the Duke of Hell and the Torque and the yay. *gushspleesquee*

And...handlingers, dexerials and sinistrals. Guh. That is so. fucking. cool. Just- whoa, fucking whoa. Flying parasitic fire breathing hand things. So cool. *melts into puddle of rotting-lemon scented slake-moth goo* Soooo coooooool. *drools* *cries* Damn you, China Mieville! Damn you!

The Construct Council? More big hard love. Not as hard as the Weaver, but still pretty hard. Maybe about a 6 on the Mohs scale. Somewhere around quartz, whereas the Weaver? Diamond. Diamond all the way.

And finally! Something that can maybe tell me what the hell a catoblepas is.

Perdido Street Station. Big. Hard. Love. Oh yeah.

I think I have a harder time writing about purely inanimate things that I used to; poems about scenery and seasons passing don't come as easily to me as poetry about people. Not a particularly useful thing for imagist poems, as people aren't as static as wheelbarrows nor as easy to capture in a single moment, I suppose. So: three imagist poems for English 200. I'm only going to use one for class, probably "Home," it being the one that requires the least explanation. (The hallway at 7:15 really is a spectacular sight, though. If you're a minute early or a minute late, you'll miss it but the sun hits the window just so and the entire corridor is blinding.)

Citrus
The glitter in her
eye
The glow in her
cheek
Placed there by the
bite
sharp and sweet
of forbidden
fruit

7:15 AM
The sun through the window at the end of the hall
A world drenched in gold.

Home
The teakettle hissing at the cat
Who sleeps belly up
like the fish we had for dinner
Is blue and dappled
with flecks of rust.

Okay, so occasionally I babble about who I'd cast as my characters if the things I wrote were movies or something like that...It occurred to me weeks ago, when we were watching Memento that that particular version of Guy Pearce is exactly how I envision Shadow, only a bit better shaven and maybe a little thinner. (Shadow forgets to feed himself, sometimes.) And a comment made by someone about how Sydney of Vagrant Story could be played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyer made me realize that he could definitely play Setzer with enough makeup and a wig. Because Setzer is actually Brian Slade, you see. Only without the whole being a popstar thing and the stormy romance with Curt Wilde. Because Daryl? So not Ewan McGregor.

I'd almost go so far as to say Daryl is cooler than Ewan McGregor, only she's dead and not, y'know, Ewan McGregor. But she was cool. Until she died.

The other problem with casting Jonathan Rhys-Meyer as Setzer is that Setzer is not pretty. Shadow is pretty. Shadow is very pretty in that incredibly hot, masculine, ninja sort of way. He's way prettier than Setzer who looks kind of like Pollution from Good Omens- you know, like all those Victorian poets after the consumption and the drugs set in. Because that's what he is, only without the poetry. Smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish despite the fact that he coughs up bits of his lungs on a regular basis and his liver gave up years ago.

The fact that Setzer is so amazingly charismatic despite the fact that he really does look like a freak- and not in a good way- is one of the reasons I love writing him. His appearance is very striking, but so is a disemboweled cow. Setzer's just not quite as colorful, what with the skin condition and all. (Skin condition, heart condition, lung condition, liver condition..."I have a condition...") Yeah. He shouldn't have survived past the age of five, but he did, and somehow managed to help save the world along the way.

Anyone who can keep an attitude that laughs in the face of everything despite losing the love of his life twice (Daryl and Blackjack) has got to be a complete and utter sociopath, but he isn't, not really. Sure, he's not entirely sane, but he still knows up from down and he still does his best to defy even that convention.

Or, let me put it this way: he gate crashes a fucking opera and kidnaps the leading lady in the middle of a performance. He then agrees to betray his former employers who have been systematically taking over the world on a rigged coin toss. He's fucking awesome.

Which is why I think he deserves a Guy Pearce look-a-like to play with after the game, hence the fucking fanfic. :) That and they're cute, when they're not trying to kill each other.

I wrote her off for the tenth time today
And practiced all the things I would say
But she came over
I lost my nerve
I took her back and made her dessert
Now I know I'm being used
That's okay cause I've got no self esteem

We make plans to go out at night
I wait till 2 then I turn out the light
All this rejection's got me so low
If she keeps it up I just might tell her so

When she's saying that she wants only me
Then I wonder why she sleeps with my friends
When she's saying that I'm like a disease
Then I wonder how much more I can spend
Well I guess I should stick up for myself
But I really think it's better this way
The more you suffer
The more it shows you really care Right?

Now I'll relate this a little bit
That happens more than I'd like to admit
Late at night she knocks on my door
Drunk again and looking to score

Now I know I should say no
But that's kind of hard when she's ready to go
I may be dumb
But I'm not a dweeb
I'm just a sucker with no self esteem
- The Offspring, "Self Esteem"

*cough* Not sure why, but this is my mood right now...aftermath, indeed.
*twitch*

"The Glorious Ones" on the lot of us getting dressed for dragball. Why yes, yes we are.

Sanzo on "Mouth." Cute, winamp, real cute. I don't write Saiyuki, I just look at pictures of pretty boys, and that skin is very pretty, indeed. And wow, that song is so mood-appropriate, it hurts.

As of Sunday, this blog is two years old! So, to celebrate, I give you Shakespeare:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Then can I drown an eye unused to flow
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe
And moan th'expense of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances forgone
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore bemoaned moan
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

This sonnet is the essence of this journal...only I have yet to go full circle the same way the poem does.

Still, one of my favorites, just because it hits so close to home. (In case you were wondering, I had to re-memorize it. I lost it about a month after I presented it last year- Shakespeare is harder than Eliot, and I had less time to work on it.)

You know what's really fucking hilarious? If I hadn't lived in fucking New Jersey all my fucking life, and if it weren't just an hour away from home and if home hadn't decided to get whacked in the head senior year, I'd probably have gone to Drew. And, if I'd known then that what has happened now was going to happen, I'd also have gone to Drew. And that would be almost as ironic as me going to Holyoke if not more for reasons that I'm not going to explain because that's frankly none of your business and I have a blistering headache and don't really feel particularly rational.

So, I could've gone to Drew, where I'd have been either too intimidated or too fucked up or too much the wrong sort of person because we all know that I am. Then I'd be in the same predicament I'm in now only worse because of that horrible horrible irony that makes me wonder if some higher power doesn't find my being completely and utterly pathetic and detestable vaguely amusing, at least to the point where perpetuating this mess seems worthwhile. And of course I'm not making sense, I'm not even attempting to make sense, why should I bother making sense when all I'm doing is talking to myself?

I swear I'm not going crazy, I'm just tired and frustrated and in pain because my body has chosen the worst possible time to rebel, and I've been playing the possibilities game again because really, I never learn.

The grass is always greener when you're not looking at it.

Fuck, I need to go to sleep.

Take these plastic people
Read their lips, now let it linger
Is there anything that makes them sound
Sincere?
Come on, tightly hold your hand
Take a deep breath, give them the finger
Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite clear?
(twich)
Overlooked, unfit apperance

I remember falling
I remember marching
Like a one man army
Through the blaze
I know I'm coughing
I believe in something
I don't wanna remember falling
For their lies

Unbutton your clothes
Undress your soul, shouw them your vigor
Are these inhibitions easiest to fear?
Take this gasoline tin
Head up high, walk like a winner
Let the bare feet be the last sound
That they hear
(twich)
Overlooked, unfit apperance

I remember falling
I remember marching
Like a one man army
Through the blaze
I know I'm coughing
I believe in something
I don't wanna remember falling
For their lies

For their lies, for their lies
*repeat*
- "One Man Army," Our Lady Peace

Because it's Ashley's song. Because Technomancy said so. Because I frighten myself sometimes when it hurts this much. Because it's music, and there is no greater thing in all of heaven or earth. Because I'm still looking for God and all that's left behind the couch is lint. But really, just because.

Von and Ari'i want more angst, but I refuse to give in to them. Setzer and Shadow are debating the merits of further fluff (Setzer is for, Shadow is vehemently against) since I owe them something more than the rampant silliness below for missing Setzer's birthday. Len and Jubal and Opal and Tyler want hurt/comfort and bizarre parental relationships...and Spots wants a real story, not the amazingly random world of Renegades.

So sad, too bad, I ain't doin' jack shite- though I'm really tempted to write a death scene for Setzer (of course he gets a death scene, he's too much of a melodramatic diva to not get a death scene) but that would just be horribly morbid and I've got at least five different timelines developing simultaneously for the one basic concept. >_< Think I'll continue to edit the bit of randomness I did while writing the Sappho paper and will eventually post it on ff.net.

Also: "One Man Army," Our Lady Peace? Why the fuck did it take me so many years to download this song? This is like, better than "Harder to Breathe," and I adore that song to so many pieces it isn't even funny. I mean, dude. It really is Ashley's song. Cool.

Actually, Our Lady Peace in general is pretty cool. *pleased* Music huzzah!

...Okay, so they're Canadian and that's like, thirty thousand points in their favor...but they're also responsible for "Somewhere Out There," and I detest that song. Hm. A dilemma. I think I'll mark it up to them going more mainstreamish and forgive them for it, because "Starseed" and "Thief"? Awesome.

Three Drabbles and Some Rampant Silliness
--------------------------

There was something in the way she moved, he decided. Something that called to mind endless waves on a shore of soft, sweet sand that rang with open invitation: Come, dance upon my shore and be happy, be free. From a distance, watching her move, he could see an ocean of possibilities ecompassed in the scope of her arms, her hands, her hips.

From a distance, he could pretend that the implicit invitation in her gestures was open to him, as well, until she approached and he could see the way she cut through his heart with the inevitable ice of her eyes.
(Von and Ari'i)
---------------------------

Back from an assignment, and still not back in shape. Choose your target. Aim. Throw. See the knife sprout like a daisy out of the dummy's forehead. Aim again, strike true this time, through the throat, then through the chest, then beneath the arm through a chink in the armor that is every warrior's greatest weakness, if you don't count wine and women and the lure of opium. An assassin must choose her weapons well; there was a time for blades and a time for heated glances beneath smoking eyes.

In the corner she could see her father, keeping his hands to himself by the wall. He shifted slightly, and a rack of knives ten feet away clattered to the floor. Beside her, a classmate decapitated yet another practice dummy with a slightly overexuberant throw. Both of them were scolded soundly, and she smiled to herself. It was good to be home.
(Foxbird, training, and Blaine)
--------------------------------------

Virgil resigned himself to a lifetime of lemon pepper tofu and tomatoes. Trent always gave him a look when he suggested they eat fish, and he couldn't stand it when Trent gave him that particular look. Fish eyes did not lend naturally to puppy-dog expressions, but Trent was talented in ways he could only guess at.

Chicken was out of the question, too, because then Perry would sulk or cry or stare listlessly out to sea for days on end, and just about the only thing that could distract him was a nest full of baby seagulls, and those were rather difficult to procure on the open ocean in the middle of September.

Nova didn't care what she ate, so long as it wasn't moving much. Virgil always had to promise that the tomatoes were very dead before serving them to her, because she didn't like the way they bled all over the plate.

Life had tasted so much better when he lived alone.
(Virgil, after becoming pirate king)
-----------------------------------------

"Run along, Relm, I'm going to divest your father of his clothing now." Setzer waved his hand at her absently and she sauntered off with her sketchpad, giggling.

Shadow glared and wished, not for the first time, that he could set things on fire with the power of his eyes. Setzer's jacket would probably blaze quite nicely once it got started. "You will do no such thing."

Setzer remained unrepentantly fire retardant and grinned, sliding his arms around Shadow's waist. "Would you have preferred I let her stay and watch? That's a bit twisted even for you, don't you think?"

"I sometimes wonder if you even understand the concept of discretion." He was almost smiling, though, and Setzer had gotten quite skilled at reading his non-expressions.

"Never heard of it. Must be something you picked up in some strange, foreign land, because it certainly doesn't happen around here." Setzer's grin had become the personification of wickedness as he toyed with Shadow's shirt ties. "Perhaps you'd like to move this to a more comfortable place, like, oh...the front hall? The carpeting is quite soft..."

The ninja shook his head. "Actually...I have a headache. I think I'll go take a nap." He gently pushed the other man away.

Setzer gaped, for once at a loss for words.

Shadow gave him a one-fingered salute on his way out and shut the door behind him.

"That wasn't very nice." He looked down to where Relm sat on the floor with her sketchpad. He resisted the urge to ruffle her hair and settled for an expression of vague, aloof amusement.

"He deserved it. Shouldn't you be eavesdropping on someone else's conversation?" He wasn't sure how to deal with bratty little girls, particularly not his own.

"Well, now that the two of you aint' doing nothing interestin'..." She flipped her sketchpad shut and scrambled to her feet. "See ya later, pops!" She'd clearly inherited his own talent of expiditious flight.

Shadow sighed and glared at her retreating figure. "Pops?" Oh, for heat vision goggles...life would be so much easier with heat vision goggles...
(Setzer gets no nookie)
--------------------

Yeah, yeah, Von and Ari'i do sleep together, but that was a one-shot deal because they're both too bitter, jaded, and screwed up to ever admit they love each other. (Song of Shadows: look, it's het, I swear! Just, y'know, ignore all those longing glances Von keeps giving everyone else.)

Blaine has managed to stab himself with a quarterstaff. He's not allowed to shave without supervision. Naturally his daughter is one of the most talented assassins in the guild.

Poor, poor Virgil. He doesn't deserve half the shit that happens to him, but at least he gets a happy ending. If you could call living with Trent, Perry, and Nova happy, that is...At least he gets to call himself a Pirate King. He's even got the silly hat to go with it.

Every ninja secretly wants heat vision goggles. Why should Shadow be any exception? (Had a very hard time not having either one of them refer to the other as 'wifey'. Because Shadow totally pulled a 'wifey' there, and it really wasn't very nice of him at all. Setzer had it coming, though; the beginning of that particular scene involves lawyers and signet rings, and it's all just very, very silly.)

I like how I can go from angst to complete and utter silliness in under a thousand words. Hee.

art!

whee, painter.

Sometimes, you just get lost in the possibilities, the what haves and what ifs and whyevers and could I, should I, why didn't I sort of thoughts. You start to follow a thought, a barely whispered doubt and then the next thing you know you're six more years in the future, twelve years too late and you're asking yourself, "Is this who I want to be now? Is this who I'm going to be? Am I happy with my life like this, is this what I want, is this what I need, who am I, really? In the end, do I even know? Can I change it, can I stop it, can I be someone else, for a moment, maybe? Can I even be myself?"

And then you stop, because if you don't stop you'll die and you'll never know what it's like to be old enough to think those thoughts and feel those fears. Well, aside from the fact that you're feeling them now, but you hope that six years from now you'll be feeling those doubts about reasonable things, mature things, understandable things. Not the childish obsessions of a girl too dependent upon others to break away and create her own life.

Thinking in circles isn't a Tuesday thing, really. It's just a life thing, and I rather wish it weren't my life that were doing it.

So, tuesdays. Tuesdays in February, no less, and I know that if I go back into last February, I'll have a rant about how much I hate this month. Short and brutal, that's what it is, and I despise it. My dislike of Tuesdays has to do with marching band, I think. I don't really know or care anymore.

My Tuesdays have always been horribly busy; this isn't a bad thing, in and of itself, it's just always been the case. So by the end of the day I'm exhausted, but it's a good sort of exhaustion, the productive sort.

Then there comes the time when I have nothing to do, and I'm just hanging after all of this running around and thinking. I'm too exhausted to think straight, so I just think in circles and end up thinking myself into a corner.

I hate being cornered. I start to second guess everything and this makes me waspish and irritable, which is generally unpleasant for me and everyone around me, so then I just sit and stare blankly at the nearest inanimate object, because I can't screw up too badly if I'm doing that.

edited before publishing: When found in her natural habitat, engaged in the common pastime of sulking, it is best to throw something at the wild Vera's head or, if one's aim is off, to simply hug her. That is actually documented as being more successful in distracting her, though she has been known to snap at those attempting it.

Oi. Dramatic little brat, aren't I?

I've figured it out! Neil Finn and Crowded House are like a proto-Duncan Sheik, who is like the wiser, more talented but less pop-oriented older brother of John Mayer, who is actually a Bizarro Jason Mraz, only Jason Mraz is better because his last name has fewer vowels and he gets gnomes and roosters. John Mayer doesn't have gnomes or roosters. Clearly he sucks.

But really, John Mayer, Jason Mraz- same initials, kinda similar music, vaguely similar appearance...one of them is a Bizarro version of the other, you can't deny it.

Early Crowded House does not resemble early Duncan Sheik in any way, aside from the one-hit wonder thing and possibly (though not likely) "Hole in the River," which is the closest early Crowded House gets to being moody. I think. It's been a while since I listened to their first album, since I can only take so much amateurish 80's pop rock with the occasional jazzish styling. I guess early Crowded House is a little bit like recent Duncan Sheik only, y'know, nowhere near as good.

And Duncan isn't half as weird as Neil Finn.

Just trying to draw lines between the music...the connections amuse me sometimes.

More lyrics! Awesome song, with an awesome amv to go with it...it fills me with great amounts of joy, and I've no idea why.

Maybe life is like a ride on a freeway
Dodging bullets while you're trying to find your way
Everyone's around, but no one does a damn thing
It brings me down, but I won't let them

If I seem bleak
Well you'd be correct
And if I don't speak
It's cause I can't disconnect
But I won't be burned by the reflection
Of the fire in your eyes
As you're staring at the sun

When I ran I didn't feel like a runaway
When I escaped I didn't feel like I got away
There's more to living than only surviving
Maybe I'm not there, but I'm still trying

Though you hear me
I don't think that you relate
My will is something
That you can't confiscate
So forgive me, but I won't be frustrated
By destruction in your eyes
As you're staring at the sun

*repeat as necessary*
-"Staring at the Sun," The Offspring

Couldn't take the previous crap any longer. Back to unoriginal templates. Excuse the hugeness of the text; I may change it later.

Soup!

Alcohol, my permanent accessory
Alcohol, a party time necessity
Alcohol, alternative to feeling like yourself
O Alcohol, I still drink to your health.
Refrain:
I love you more than I did the week before I discovered alcohol.
Forget the café lattés, screw the raspberry iced tea
A Malibu and Coke for you, a g&t for me
Alcohol, your songs resolve like my life never will
When someone else is picking up the bill
(Refrain)
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me,
But while I cannot love myself
I'll use something else
I thought that alcohol was just for those with nothing else to do
I thought that drinking just to get drunk was a waste of precious
booze
But now I know that there's a time and there's a place where I can
choose
To walk the fine line between self control and self abuse
(Go, go, go, go, go, etc)
(Refrain)
Would you please ignore that you found me on the floor trying on your
camisole.
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me,
But while I cannot love myself
I'll use something else
Would you please forgive me?
-"Alcohol," Bare Naked Ladies

It's a great song, it really is. I highly recommend it.