Seventh Hour was all about the high-handed language and epic heroes. Dunno why I'm suddenly writing for it again; I'd thought that world was abandoned and gone in my head.
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A firestorm raged over the battlefield, with Marcus standing at the center of it. When the ash finally cleared, it was Numa, not Asphodel, who walked through the smoking coals to catch him as he fell. The Barren girl covered her face against the sun and cowered in the shade of a withered tree.
Marcus wiped the ash and blood from his face when Numa set him back on his feet. "They took her." He let himself be led from the battlefield; they were the only living things for miles. "I let them take her."
Tiny flames still danced around the crown of his head and at his fingertips. Numa caught them between his thumb and forefinger and gathered them in the palm of his hand. The fire evaporated into faint warmth across his skin. "You allowed nothing, Marcus. This is not your fault, anymore than the fall of Uruk was your fault."
"Not my fault? Are you blind?" Marcus laughed untils his legs trembled and Numa had to hold him before he fell again. "You're a fool for staying with me, Zelindo. A fool above all other fools, because I'll never love you as I love them, no matter how many times you keep me from falling."
"It's been generations since you last called me that, Marcus." Numa's voice was gentle, chiding. "Shall you be Marduk, once more? And will she become Isidore in your eyes- Isidore, leaving you behind, yet again? And can you even remember her name? Let us not speak of fools. I know who I am; can you say the same?"
Marcus leaned on him heavily and closed his eyes. "I am the Destroyer and Keeper of the Last Hour. That is all I shall ever be, all I shall ever need." He went limp in Numa's arms.
Once, he had been a common thief; once, he had been a vererated priest of the Clock- and those were both within one lifetime. Numa couldn't remember much in the generations between himself and Zelindo, but he knew that he would always, no matter the situation, stand by this man, be his name Marcus or Marduk or Abaddon. Some things were determined by forces outside the scope of human comprehension.
Numa carried him back to the edge of the battlefield where Asphodel waited. Her skin glinted in the sun that filtered through the tree branches. She shied away from the heat that rolled off of them in waves and stared at Numa with the sadness of a thousand unfinished lifetimes in her eyes.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Thirteen, Final Fantasy IV: Southside of the Sky
Vaguely Kain/Edge, but not really, because that's seriously just wrong. Kain just likes getting a o_0 reaction out of Edge, that's all. (And he remains, after fourteen years, three official incarnations, and at least two unofficial variations, my favorite character in anything, ever.)
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He met Edge at the bottom of the mountain. When he saw the other man's scowl, he briefly wondered if the bribe Cecil was paying the ninja was truly heinous, or merely ridiculous.
Kain had heard whispers on the wind of a coronation in Eblan; there was no other explanation for the way his former (was there a word for enemies who fought side by side?) friend looked so tired and careworn. Perhaps Cecil hadn't had to bribe him much at all; Edge had probably leapt at the first chance to escape his kingdom.
You never love something so much as when you leave it behind, he thought, and knew he could sympathize with Edge's weariness more than the other man knew.
"You surely took your time, Highwind. The wizards told me you'd reach sea level hours ago." Edge crossed his arms and furrowed his brow in irritation.
Kain flipped his visor open and rested his lance against his shoulder. His grin might have been friendly and easy, if he hadn't spent the better part of the last five years learning to be a dragon. "Still henpecked, I see." He ignored the shorter man's outraged guffaw. "There are no ropes keeping you bound to the earth- nothing to stop you from ascending the mount."
Edge looked away. "I've no time to be climbing mountains. I was told to retrieve you- you've people waiting for you in Baron."
"They've been waiting for years; a few more hours won't do them any harm." He tilted his head in the direction of the mountain. "Race to the top?"
Something like the fire that once burned in the young prince's eyes sparked. "If it will see you on the Devil's Road to Baron by sunset, I'll leave you here to contemplate my backside from a distance."
Kain winked. "It's a much better view from close by, or so I've heard." He flipped his visor shut and was thirty feet in the air before Edge had stopped sputtering.
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He met Edge at the bottom of the mountain. When he saw the other man's scowl, he briefly wondered if the bribe Cecil was paying the ninja was truly heinous, or merely ridiculous.
Kain had heard whispers on the wind of a coronation in Eblan; there was no other explanation for the way his former (was there a word for enemies who fought side by side?) friend looked so tired and careworn. Perhaps Cecil hadn't had to bribe him much at all; Edge had probably leapt at the first chance to escape his kingdom.
You never love something so much as when you leave it behind, he thought, and knew he could sympathize with Edge's weariness more than the other man knew.
"You surely took your time, Highwind. The wizards told me you'd reach sea level hours ago." Edge crossed his arms and furrowed his brow in irritation.
Kain flipped his visor open and rested his lance against his shoulder. His grin might have been friendly and easy, if he hadn't spent the better part of the last five years learning to be a dragon. "Still henpecked, I see." He ignored the shorter man's outraged guffaw. "There are no ropes keeping you bound to the earth- nothing to stop you from ascending the mount."
Edge looked away. "I've no time to be climbing mountains. I was told to retrieve you- you've people waiting for you in Baron."
"They've been waiting for years; a few more hours won't do them any harm." He tilted his head in the direction of the mountain. "Race to the top?"
Something like the fire that once burned in the young prince's eyes sparked. "If it will see you on the Devil's Road to Baron by sunset, I'll leave you here to contemplate my backside from a distance."
Kain winked. "It's a much better view from close by, or so I've heard." He flipped his visor shut and was thirty feet in the air before Edge had stopped sputtering.
Twelve, House: Terminal Idiocy
I can't write House at all, but goddamnit, kittens are cute. Horrible OOCness, ho!
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House had come to expect a certain level of stupidity from his team; it kept things entertaining. But this- this was a new high. He peered into the box on the coffee table and shook his head. "I think the best way to respond to this situation is to borrow some words from Chase's people. WTF, mate?"
"It's a kitten," Cameron said, ever helpful. "They were giving them away in Pediatrics."
"And I suppose none of you could resist the prospect of free kittens? Is your pay that bad? Can't you feed yourselves some other, more legal way?"
The kitten in question hooked its paws over the edge of the box and meeped at him. House reached out to it, but Chase- Chase- grabbed it before he could touch it. "Leave her alone!"
"Oh for- I wasn't going to hurt your precious kitty, Chase. What do you think I am, some sort of amoral kicke of small furry animals?"
"Yes."
"Yeah."
"It wouldn't surprise me." Foreman leaned back in his chair. "It does match your behavioral patterns up to this point."
House glared at them, but they returned his look with complete deadpan expressions. They'd gotten good. He was almost proud of them. He hobbled over to his board and picked up a marker. "Can anyone tell me the diagnostic for terminal idiocy?" He drew a large question mark at the top of the board, and then drew a cartoony cat underneath it.
His staff was ignoring him in favor of the kitten, who was purring contendedly in Chase's arms.
Okay. So maybe it was kind of cute. But it was totally against regulations. Cuddy would throw a fit. "Fine. Just don't let it get cat hair all over everything. If you remember to feed it every day, we can keep it."
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House had come to expect a certain level of stupidity from his team; it kept things entertaining. But this- this was a new high. He peered into the box on the coffee table and shook his head. "I think the best way to respond to this situation is to borrow some words from Chase's people. WTF, mate?"
"It's a kitten," Cameron said, ever helpful. "They were giving them away in Pediatrics."
"And I suppose none of you could resist the prospect of free kittens? Is your pay that bad? Can't you feed yourselves some other, more legal way?"
The kitten in question hooked its paws over the edge of the box and meeped at him. House reached out to it, but Chase- Chase- grabbed it before he could touch it. "Leave her alone!"
"Oh for- I wasn't going to hurt your precious kitty, Chase. What do you think I am, some sort of amoral kicke of small furry animals?"
"Yes."
"Yeah."
"It wouldn't surprise me." Foreman leaned back in his chair. "It does match your behavioral patterns up to this point."
House glared at them, but they returned his look with complete deadpan expressions. They'd gotten good. He was almost proud of them. He hobbled over to his board and picked up a marker. "Can anyone tell me the diagnostic for terminal idiocy?" He drew a large question mark at the top of the board, and then drew a cartoony cat underneath it.
His staff was ignoring him in favor of the kitten, who was purring contendedly in Chase's arms.
Okay. So maybe it was kind of cute. But it was totally against regulations. Cuddy would throw a fit. "Fine. Just don't let it get cat hair all over everything. If you remember to feed it every day, we can keep it."
Eleven, Naruto: Scars, part 4
So, my new OT3 seems to be Genma/Raidou/Ino. Stop looking at me like that, it makes sense in my head.
These are all really out of order. Somewhere between the last bit and this one, Ino does actually meet Genma and Raidou.
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Ino styles her hair carefully each morning, to hide the burn scars, and wears her hitai-ate as a bandana to hide the bald patches. She's been promoted to tokubetsu jounin; Shikamaru tells her she looks like a pirate and Chouji says she looks like a sexy-no-jutsu Genma.
Genma laughs when she tells him this, and says she's prettier than he'll ever be. She knows that isn't true, but she lets him tease her. In the end, what he says doesn't matter; Raidou brushes her hair away from her face and tells her it gets better over time.
She believes him, because if anyone would know, he would. Shikamaru and Chouji don't understand. They just feel guilty, and she wants them to realize that she would do it again in a heartbeat. They are her team, her family- she could look like Ibiki and she wouldn't care, as long as it meant they were safe.
When Raidou kisses her, she isn't surprised. They're a matched set; this was nothing short of inevitable to her sense of aesthetics. He kisses her like she's made of glass, or perhaps like he is. When Genma kisses her, she accuses him of being a pervert with a scar fetish.
He drapes an arm over Raidou's shoulder and wraps the other around her waist, pulling them close. He kisses them both, and refuses to say anything in his own defense.
These are all really out of order. Somewhere between the last bit and this one, Ino does actually meet Genma and Raidou.
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Ino styles her hair carefully each morning, to hide the burn scars, and wears her hitai-ate as a bandana to hide the bald patches. She's been promoted to tokubetsu jounin; Shikamaru tells her she looks like a pirate and Chouji says she looks like a sexy-no-jutsu Genma.
Genma laughs when she tells him this, and says she's prettier than he'll ever be. She knows that isn't true, but she lets him tease her. In the end, what he says doesn't matter; Raidou brushes her hair away from her face and tells her it gets better over time.
She believes him, because if anyone would know, he would. Shikamaru and Chouji don't understand. They just feel guilty, and she wants them to realize that she would do it again in a heartbeat. They are her team, her family- she could look like Ibiki and she wouldn't care, as long as it meant they were safe.
When Raidou kisses her, she isn't surprised. They're a matched set; this was nothing short of inevitable to her sense of aesthetics. He kisses her like she's made of glass, or perhaps like he is. When Genma kisses her, she accuses him of being a pervert with a scar fetish.
He drapes an arm over Raidou's shoulder and wraps the other around her waist, pulling them close. He kisses them both, and refuses to say anything in his own defense.
Ten, Naruto: Scars, part 3
These are actually really out of order; next bit in the Ino thing, and my continued disapproval of Sasuke/Sakura in general.
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"What about Shikamaru? I wouldn't mind."
Sakura's jaw twitched, and she stabbed a piece of bell pepper with her chopsticks with a little more vehemence than necessary. "No, Ino. I'm not going out with Shikamaru. He isn't interested in me, anyway- and what would we do? Sit and watch clouds? He doesn't have a romantic bone in his body."
Ino very carefully didn't mention that Sasuke not only didn't have a romantic bone in his body, he also didn't have a spine, or any bones without traitorous, murderous, or obsessive tendencies. "Neji is cute," she said, instead. "And I think Ten-Ten is a lesbian, so she probably wouldn't mind. Lee would be upset, though. Hey, why won't you go out with Lee?"
The chopsticks snapped into pieces between Sakura's fingers. She set them down beside her bowl very carefully, and stood up from the table. "It was nice talking to you, Ino-chan." She picked up her bag of medical supplies. "Tsunade-shishou needs me back at the hospital now."
Ino's voice stopped her in the doorway of the little restaurant. "You know he isn't going to come back. There are people who care about you here. You could be happy with one of them."
Sakura didn't turn around. "No. I couldn't."
Ino's lip curled as she watched her friend go. She couldn't decide who made her angrier: Sasuke, for leaving Sakura like this, or Sakura, for being such an idiot.
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"What about Shikamaru? I wouldn't mind."
Sakura's jaw twitched, and she stabbed a piece of bell pepper with her chopsticks with a little more vehemence than necessary. "No, Ino. I'm not going out with Shikamaru. He isn't interested in me, anyway- and what would we do? Sit and watch clouds? He doesn't have a romantic bone in his body."
Ino very carefully didn't mention that Sasuke not only didn't have a romantic bone in his body, he also didn't have a spine, or any bones without traitorous, murderous, or obsessive tendencies. "Neji is cute," she said, instead. "And I think Ten-Ten is a lesbian, so she probably wouldn't mind. Lee would be upset, though. Hey, why won't you go out with Lee?"
The chopsticks snapped into pieces between Sakura's fingers. She set them down beside her bowl very carefully, and stood up from the table. "It was nice talking to you, Ino-chan." She picked up her bag of medical supplies. "Tsunade-shishou needs me back at the hospital now."
Ino's voice stopped her in the doorway of the little restaurant. "You know he isn't going to come back. There are people who care about you here. You could be happy with one of them."
Sakura didn't turn around. "No. I couldn't."
Ino's lip curled as she watched her friend go. She couldn't decide who made her angrier: Sasuke, for leaving Sakura like this, or Sakura, for being such an idiot.
Nine, Final Fantasy VI: From the Dead
Yes, I am the world's only Setzer/Shadow fangirl, and I'm damned proud of it. This is part of the same continuity as Fall, at the very beginning of that epic I never finished.
My Shadow is tired and world-weary and no longer cares about much of anything, including the fact that he suddenly seems to be seeing ghosts; my Setzer is an eternal optimist with a terminal disease, and knows better than to question his luck. They like to snark at each other, when they're both fully conscious.
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The first thing he noticed was that he was not, in fact, dead. He felt like a tower had fallen on top of him (funny thing, that), but he was alive.
This was the fifth time something like this had happened- and the third time it had happened in relation to these people, with their stupid hopes and ideals. He was starting to wonder if he really was just impossible to kill, or if there were other factors at work that he was not privy to.
The second thing he noticed was the subtle vibration in the air, followed by the smell of tobacco and, fainter, of metal and oil.
He was on the airship. That meant someone had noticed he was missing and had gone back for him- someone other than Relm, because Strago would never have allowed it.
That thought stung a little, but he permitted it; he'd lost those rights years ago.
Shadow (it had taken him years to get used to the name, but after a while it stuck, even in his head) opened his eyes. He was in a small bedroom; unlike the rest of the ship, which was a study in cold metal, this room was furnished in warm, expensive wood. It reminded him, disturbingly enough, of certain train cars, half a lifetime ago.
"Good morning, Mister Shadow." Setzer sat (lounged) beside his bed with a cigarette in one hand and a wine glass in the other. "I was starting to think you were going to sleep the day away."
Shadow stared at the space behind the gambler's shoulder, where a pale blonde woman in a red dress stood with her own cigarette and wine glass in hand. He realized that she wasn't so much pale as insubstantial; after a moment, she winked at him and faded from view.
Setzer regarded him with a look of cool interest. "It's not every day someone returns from the dead on my airship, you know."
Shadow shrugged. He was still tired and in pain. "Happens more often than you'd think," he murmered, and closed his eyes. Within a few moments, he was asleep again, with the sound of faint female laughter echoing in his ears.
My Shadow is tired and world-weary and no longer cares about much of anything, including the fact that he suddenly seems to be seeing ghosts; my Setzer is an eternal optimist with a terminal disease, and knows better than to question his luck. They like to snark at each other, when they're both fully conscious.
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The first thing he noticed was that he was not, in fact, dead. He felt like a tower had fallen on top of him (funny thing, that), but he was alive.
This was the fifth time something like this had happened- and the third time it had happened in relation to these people, with their stupid hopes and ideals. He was starting to wonder if he really was just impossible to kill, or if there were other factors at work that he was not privy to.
The second thing he noticed was the subtle vibration in the air, followed by the smell of tobacco and, fainter, of metal and oil.
He was on the airship. That meant someone had noticed he was missing and had gone back for him- someone other than Relm, because Strago would never have allowed it.
That thought stung a little, but he permitted it; he'd lost those rights years ago.
Shadow (it had taken him years to get used to the name, but after a while it stuck, even in his head) opened his eyes. He was in a small bedroom; unlike the rest of the ship, which was a study in cold metal, this room was furnished in warm, expensive wood. It reminded him, disturbingly enough, of certain train cars, half a lifetime ago.
"Good morning, Mister Shadow." Setzer sat (lounged) beside his bed with a cigarette in one hand and a wine glass in the other. "I was starting to think you were going to sleep the day away."
Shadow stared at the space behind the gambler's shoulder, where a pale blonde woman in a red dress stood with her own cigarette and wine glass in hand. He realized that she wasn't so much pale as insubstantial; after a moment, she winked at him and faded from view.
Setzer regarded him with a look of cool interest. "It's not every day someone returns from the dead on my airship, you know."
Shadow shrugged. He was still tired and in pain. "Happens more often than you'd think," he murmered, and closed his eyes. Within a few moments, he was asleep again, with the sound of faint female laughter echoing in his ears.
Eight, Bleach: Contingency Plans
(Hopefully by posting these one at a time, they won't spazz out the feed.)
Oh, have I mentioned lately that I love Ikkaku? Because I do. So much. So, so much.
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Contingency Plans
Being third seat of the Eleventh Division meant Ikkaku had to plan for certain, almost inevitable eventualities. Things Yachiru couldn't be expected to worry about- the supply depot running out of sake, for instance, or Zaraki-taichou losing his marbles and taking over Seireitei.
In the case of the latter, Ikkaku had worked everything out. First, they would have to take out the Fourth Division. The Fourth was full of wimps, so the Eleventh wouldn't strain anything beating them up, and with them out of commission, the other divisons, wouldn't be able to heal themselves.
Unahana-taichou was kind of scarey, but Ikkaku was sure Zaraki could take her. Reasonably sure, anyway.
They'd have to take out the Twelth after that, because they were too creepy to leave alive for too long. And most of them were as wimpy as the Fourth- they had to be, what with the way they all kept gettin' killed by their own captain.
The Thirteenth would go down easy next- poorly organized and kind of sickly, they wouldn't be a problem. Yachiru was fond of Ukitake, but maybe they wouldn't have to kill him; everyone said he was a nice guy.
The Ninth, Fifth, and Third were all still recovering from that mess with Aizen and the Ryoka, so they'd be no problem. They'd get Shunsui drunk and take out the Eighth; Yumichika would take out the vice captain with one of his super-beautiful-make-over specials.
Matsumoto would get drunk as easily as Shunsui, and Hitsugaya was terrified of Yachiru, so that took care of the Tenth. As for the Seventh- if they could convince Iba to get his dumbass self back to his proper division, they'd just have to let Zaraki and Komamura have at it and wait for the smoke to clear afterwards. Same thing for Renji in the Sixth, and Zaraki-taichou'd been wanting to tear that Kuchiki bastard a new one after that incident with his sister.
Ikkaku personally agreed with his captain on that one. You just didn't do that to family.
He wasn't too sure how they'd take out the First and Second Divisions; Yamamoto was pretty formidable, and even Yachiru was kind of scared of Soi Fong. They'd come up with something. By the time they got through the first ten divisions, the last two would probably just surrender in the face of the Eleventh's awesomeness.
Afterwards, Ikkaku would have to organize the victory party, and that meant making sure there was enough booze for everyone. Maybe whores, too, and food. It was a lot to plan for. Being third seat was a big responsibility in the Eleventh Division, but Ikkaku was determined not to let his captain down.
Oh, have I mentioned lately that I love Ikkaku? Because I do. So much. So, so much.
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Contingency Plans
Being third seat of the Eleventh Division meant Ikkaku had to plan for certain, almost inevitable eventualities. Things Yachiru couldn't be expected to worry about- the supply depot running out of sake, for instance, or Zaraki-taichou losing his marbles and taking over Seireitei.
In the case of the latter, Ikkaku had worked everything out. First, they would have to take out the Fourth Division. The Fourth was full of wimps, so the Eleventh wouldn't strain anything beating them up, and with them out of commission, the other divisons, wouldn't be able to heal themselves.
Unahana-taichou was kind of scarey, but Ikkaku was sure Zaraki could take her. Reasonably sure, anyway.
They'd have to take out the Twelth after that, because they were too creepy to leave alive for too long. And most of them were as wimpy as the Fourth- they had to be, what with the way they all kept gettin' killed by their own captain.
The Thirteenth would go down easy next- poorly organized and kind of sickly, they wouldn't be a problem. Yachiru was fond of Ukitake, but maybe they wouldn't have to kill him; everyone said he was a nice guy.
The Ninth, Fifth, and Third were all still recovering from that mess with Aizen and the Ryoka, so they'd be no problem. They'd get Shunsui drunk and take out the Eighth; Yumichika would take out the vice captain with one of his super-beautiful-make-over specials.
Matsumoto would get drunk as easily as Shunsui, and Hitsugaya was terrified of Yachiru, so that took care of the Tenth. As for the Seventh- if they could convince Iba to get his dumbass self back to his proper division, they'd just have to let Zaraki and Komamura have at it and wait for the smoke to clear afterwards. Same thing for Renji in the Sixth, and Zaraki-taichou'd been wanting to tear that Kuchiki bastard a new one after that incident with his sister.
Ikkaku personally agreed with his captain on that one. You just didn't do that to family.
He wasn't too sure how they'd take out the First and Second Divisions; Yamamoto was pretty formidable, and even Yachiru was kind of scared of Soi Fong. They'd come up with something. By the time they got through the first ten divisions, the last two would probably just surrender in the face of the Eleventh's awesomeness.
Afterwards, Ikkaku would have to organize the victory party, and that meant making sure there was enough booze for everyone. Maybe whores, too, and food. It was a lot to plan for. Being third seat was a big responsibility in the Eleventh Division, but Ikkaku was determined not to let his captain down.
Seven, Naruto: 20 Truths Kankurou
Kankurou, a la 20 Truths; he's sort of a cross between my Blindsided Kankurou and my Boneharvester Kankurou, not that that will mean anything to anyone who isn't me. (Most of this is pretty meh, because I suck.)
Kankurou/Hinata, Kankurou/Neji, because I honestly still can't decide.
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1 When he was five, he broke a valuable antique vase with a poorly aimed shuriken; he told Uncle Yashamaru it was Gaara's fault. Uncle Yashamaru actually believed him; Kankurou still feels a little guilty about using his brother for a scapegoat, but he values his ribcage too much to ever breathe a word of the truth to anyone. Gaara still doesn't have much of a sense of humor.
2 Kankurou has been ignored in favor of his siblings for most of his life. Temari has always been the better fighter, and Gaara has always been impossible to ignore. Rather than feeling bitter, he feels relieved; it's much easier to get away with things when no one notices you. His ability to fade into the background was what originally drew him to the theater, and it's part of the reason he's become so successful.
3 He does not play with dolls. His puppets are his weapons, and anyone who accuses him of "playing" will receive swift and merciless reeducation.
4 He loves his siblings. Even Temari when she's just finished kicking his ass for the third time that week over some imagined slight or annoyance. Even Gaara when the sand starts playing with his puppets while Gaara gives him that "my imaginary friend could beat up your imaginary friend" look.
5 He no longer remembers what his own face looks like; he knows that the collection of individual features staring back from the mirror are his, but on some level he still believes he's lookng at someone else. He only starts to see himself when that first layer of white foundation is applied; he doesn't truly recognize his own face until he's drawn in the lines around his eyes, completely obscuring his natural face from view.
6 He loves the desert and his village, despite all of his many threats to defect to Konoha, "Where the weather is cool and the women are hot, and only half the citizens are homicidal and insane."
7 He likes working with his hands, be it on his puppets or dolls, or fixing broken things around the house. Wood is scarce in the desert, so he keeps a chunk of sandstone and a file in his pocket to carve when he has a few minutes to kill. He sometimes gives the finished products to Temari or Gaara, or the children who hang around the theater.
8 He can spend hours in his workshop, remodeling his puppets and building new mechanisms and traps. He likes the neatness of clockwork, and the satisfaction of building something with his own hands.
9 Sometimes he spends hours in his workshop building toys that serve no purpose- actual dolls, each exquisitely crafted and modelled after the people he's met.
10 The very first toys he made were supposed to be gifts for his little brother; Gaara grew into a monster, and Kankurou never gave them away. Ever since Gaara became Kazekage, he's left one outside his brother's door in the middle of the night, once a month, to make up for all of those missed birthdays. He still has several years to make up for.
11 He likes to cook, but he's not very good at it. He's usually the one who gets roped into feeding the three of them; Temari is an excellent cook but refuses to so much as set foot in a kitchen. Gaara forgets to eat if he isn't constantly reminded, and wouldn't know what to do with a pack of instant ramen even if you gave him detailed instructions and a microwave. Usually both Gaara and Temari will refuse to eat anything he cooks, anyway, and as a result, he is their family's official Orderer of Take-Out.
12 The first and only time he fought with Hyuuga Neji, he was convinced he'd fallen in love for nearly a week. (The first and only time he fought with Hyuuga Neji was because Kankurou had been half convinced he'd fallen in love with Hinata up until that point.)
13 He doesn't really believe in love, but he's an enormous fan of sex and theatricality, and he thinks Hinata has a sweet smile and an excellent appreciation for theater.
14 She stutterd around him, too; he sent her messages by marionette, and conducted an illicit Victorian romance with her across the walls of the Hyuuga compound.
15 When Neji found out about the notes, he disabled all of Kankurou's chakra pathways and told Kiba and Shino. Once his chakra had recovered enough for him to flee, Kankurou had to avoid Konoha for a few months before tempers cooled. He felt this was particularly unfair since he hadn't actually done anything wrong; all they did was write letters to discuss theater and philosophy and occasionally poetry. He wasn't planning on marrying her and he wasn't planning on sleeping with her.
16 In retribution, he started sending Neji little notes wrapped around the handles of kunai- through the window of Neji's bedroom.
17 It came as a relief to everyone in both villages when the two of them stopped flirting and started fucking.
18 It's true what they say about a puppeteer's hands.
19 He likes to think that he'll get married some day, and have children to carry on the family name. But then he'll look in a mirror and see his father's face staring back at him, and he realizes that their name isn't the best thing to brag about.
20 He's a little too smug to be a truly great actor, but that confidence gains him glory on the battlefield. When he retires as a shinobi, he'll learn a little humility. Gaara and Temari always laugh when he shares this ambition with them, so he doesn't try to explain how much he truly looks forward to retirement. He'd like to try out an ordinary life for a while, just to see what it's like.
Kankurou/Hinata, Kankurou/Neji, because I honestly still can't decide.
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1 When he was five, he broke a valuable antique vase with a poorly aimed shuriken; he told Uncle Yashamaru it was Gaara's fault. Uncle Yashamaru actually believed him; Kankurou still feels a little guilty about using his brother for a scapegoat, but he values his ribcage too much to ever breathe a word of the truth to anyone. Gaara still doesn't have much of a sense of humor.
2 Kankurou has been ignored in favor of his siblings for most of his life. Temari has always been the better fighter, and Gaara has always been impossible to ignore. Rather than feeling bitter, he feels relieved; it's much easier to get away with things when no one notices you. His ability to fade into the background was what originally drew him to the theater, and it's part of the reason he's become so successful.
3 He does not play with dolls. His puppets are his weapons, and anyone who accuses him of "playing" will receive swift and merciless reeducation.
4 He loves his siblings. Even Temari when she's just finished kicking his ass for the third time that week over some imagined slight or annoyance. Even Gaara when the sand starts playing with his puppets while Gaara gives him that "my imaginary friend could beat up your imaginary friend" look.
5 He no longer remembers what his own face looks like; he knows that the collection of individual features staring back from the mirror are his, but on some level he still believes he's lookng at someone else. He only starts to see himself when that first layer of white foundation is applied; he doesn't truly recognize his own face until he's drawn in the lines around his eyes, completely obscuring his natural face from view.
6 He loves the desert and his village, despite all of his many threats to defect to Konoha, "Where the weather is cool and the women are hot, and only half the citizens are homicidal and insane."
7 He likes working with his hands, be it on his puppets or dolls, or fixing broken things around the house. Wood is scarce in the desert, so he keeps a chunk of sandstone and a file in his pocket to carve when he has a few minutes to kill. He sometimes gives the finished products to Temari or Gaara, or the children who hang around the theater.
8 He can spend hours in his workshop, remodeling his puppets and building new mechanisms and traps. He likes the neatness of clockwork, and the satisfaction of building something with his own hands.
9 Sometimes he spends hours in his workshop building toys that serve no purpose- actual dolls, each exquisitely crafted and modelled after the people he's met.
10 The very first toys he made were supposed to be gifts for his little brother; Gaara grew into a monster, and Kankurou never gave them away. Ever since Gaara became Kazekage, he's left one outside his brother's door in the middle of the night, once a month, to make up for all of those missed birthdays. He still has several years to make up for.
11 He likes to cook, but he's not very good at it. He's usually the one who gets roped into feeding the three of them; Temari is an excellent cook but refuses to so much as set foot in a kitchen. Gaara forgets to eat if he isn't constantly reminded, and wouldn't know what to do with a pack of instant ramen even if you gave him detailed instructions and a microwave. Usually both Gaara and Temari will refuse to eat anything he cooks, anyway, and as a result, he is their family's official Orderer of Take-Out.
12 The first and only time he fought with Hyuuga Neji, he was convinced he'd fallen in love for nearly a week. (The first and only time he fought with Hyuuga Neji was because Kankurou had been half convinced he'd fallen in love with Hinata up until that point.)
13 He doesn't really believe in love, but he's an enormous fan of sex and theatricality, and he thinks Hinata has a sweet smile and an excellent appreciation for theater.
14 She stutterd around him, too; he sent her messages by marionette, and conducted an illicit Victorian romance with her across the walls of the Hyuuga compound.
15 When Neji found out about the notes, he disabled all of Kankurou's chakra pathways and told Kiba and Shino. Once his chakra had recovered enough for him to flee, Kankurou had to avoid Konoha for a few months before tempers cooled. He felt this was particularly unfair since he hadn't actually done anything wrong; all they did was write letters to discuss theater and philosophy and occasionally poetry. He wasn't planning on marrying her and he wasn't planning on sleeping with her.
16 In retribution, he started sending Neji little notes wrapped around the handles of kunai- through the window of Neji's bedroom.
17 It came as a relief to everyone in both villages when the two of them stopped flirting and started fucking.
18 It's true what they say about a puppeteer's hands.
19 He likes to think that he'll get married some day, and have children to carry on the family name. But then he'll look in a mirror and see his father's face staring back at him, and he realizes that their name isn't the best thing to brag about.
20 He's a little too smug to be a truly great actor, but that confidence gains him glory on the battlefield. When he retires as a shinobi, he'll learn a little humility. Gaara and Temari always laugh when he shares this ambition with them, so he doesn't try to explain how much he truly looks forward to retirement. He'd like to try out an ordinary life for a while, just to see what it's like.
Six, Final Fantasy VII: Crystalize
Very incomplete- this kind of wants to be epic, not just detatched narrative. At the very least, I want it to get to the point where he meets Lucrecia and actually does stuff.
Hells, I don't even like Hojo- but there is something horribly fascinating about him.
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He was five years old when he first saw high level materia in use. It was the summer solstice festival, and he sat on his father's shoulders to better watch the fireworks. It wasn't the lights that filled him with awe, though- it was Leviathan, dancing upon the spires of Da Chao at Lady Kisaragi's command. His father told him then that he would be able to weild such power some day.
Magic was in their blood, his father said, passed down from generation to generation- but when he received his first piece of materia at the age of eight, all it did was sparkle prettily in his hands. His classmates called lightning and fire, or filled the air with dancing lights; whatever talents were supposed to be in his blood were curiously absent.
He wasn't the only one, of course- there were always a few late bloomers. But one by one his classmates mastered their materia and his remained dull in his hands. One day, he simply handed the glowing green stone back to his parents. He knew futility when he saw it, after all.
It was a great disappointment to his parents, who were both warriors and artists of the traditional style. He didn't care much for bringing honor to the family name; by that time, he'd found science, and was too busy studying for the entrance exams to Midgar University to pay attention to the hard look in his father's eyes.
He left Wutai when he was fourteen to study chemistry and genetics half a world away.
There was nothing magical in materia, he learned. It was simply crystalized mako, energy in a solid, stable state. "Magic" was nothing of the sort; it was merely the result of a reaction between the materia and the weilder's personal energy field.
He wrote home to his parents about the things he learned, the experiments he conducted; he told them about the machines his peers were making, that could refine raw mako into materia. He told them about his own plans, and his own work in biology and genetics; they stopped responding to his letters.
Eventually, he stopped sending them.
Hells, I don't even like Hojo- but there is something horribly fascinating about him.
----------
He was five years old when he first saw high level materia in use. It was the summer solstice festival, and he sat on his father's shoulders to better watch the fireworks. It wasn't the lights that filled him with awe, though- it was Leviathan, dancing upon the spires of Da Chao at Lady Kisaragi's command. His father told him then that he would be able to weild such power some day.
Magic was in their blood, his father said, passed down from generation to generation- but when he received his first piece of materia at the age of eight, all it did was sparkle prettily in his hands. His classmates called lightning and fire, or filled the air with dancing lights; whatever talents were supposed to be in his blood were curiously absent.
He wasn't the only one, of course- there were always a few late bloomers. But one by one his classmates mastered their materia and his remained dull in his hands. One day, he simply handed the glowing green stone back to his parents. He knew futility when he saw it, after all.
It was a great disappointment to his parents, who were both warriors and artists of the traditional style. He didn't care much for bringing honor to the family name; by that time, he'd found science, and was too busy studying for the entrance exams to Midgar University to pay attention to the hard look in his father's eyes.
He left Wutai when he was fourteen to study chemistry and genetics half a world away.
There was nothing magical in materia, he learned. It was simply crystalized mako, energy in a solid, stable state. "Magic" was nothing of the sort; it was merely the result of a reaction between the materia and the weilder's personal energy field.
He wrote home to his parents about the things he learned, the experiments he conducted; he told them about the machines his peers were making, that could refine raw mako into materia. He told them about his own plans, and his own work in biology and genetics; they stopped responding to his letters.
Eventually, he stopped sending them.
Five, Naruto: Scars, part 2
Obsessive love isn't pretty for anyone involved- or - Why I Can't Read SasuSaku, Reason #1.
-------------
Sakura doesn't get it, and Ino knows she doesn't. Sakura still pines after Sasuke, even though Lee has room enough in his heart for her and her screaming complexes- even though Neji casts rebellious glances at his uncle and stands a few inches too close to her, insinuating things that only another Hyuuga could read. Sakura would have seen it, too, if she weren't too wrapped up in her neat little world of medical diagrams.
The body is healthy when all of its parts are working together in harmony; that's a lesson Ino has learned over and over again, in the shop with flower arrangements and on the battlefield with a man bleeding out at her feet.
She pities Sakura, who hides in the hospital with the dying and waits for the rest of her body to return to her. Team Seven was never healthy to begin with, but the amputation of the diseased limbs merely left the body aching with phantom pain.
Ino doesn't know how to fix her friend; she only hopes that time will heal her eventually. She doesn't know medicine; she only knows the cycles of flowers, and she worries.
The lifespan of a cherry blossom is brief, after all.
-------------
Sakura doesn't get it, and Ino knows she doesn't. Sakura still pines after Sasuke, even though Lee has room enough in his heart for her and her screaming complexes- even though Neji casts rebellious glances at his uncle and stands a few inches too close to her, insinuating things that only another Hyuuga could read. Sakura would have seen it, too, if she weren't too wrapped up in her neat little world of medical diagrams.
The body is healthy when all of its parts are working together in harmony; that's a lesson Ino has learned over and over again, in the shop with flower arrangements and on the battlefield with a man bleeding out at her feet.
She pities Sakura, who hides in the hospital with the dying and waits for the rest of her body to return to her. Team Seven was never healthy to begin with, but the amputation of the diseased limbs merely left the body aching with phantom pain.
Ino doesn't know how to fix her friend; she only hopes that time will heal her eventually. She doesn't know medicine; she only knows the cycles of flowers, and she worries.
The lifespan of a cherry blossom is brief, after all.
Four, Seventh Hour: Turning
UNEDITED ORIGINAL DRIVEL.
(I'm always more interested in what happens after the end of my stories than the actual stories themselves. And I fucked over the characters in Seventh Hour almost as badly as the ones in Stella Matin. They all ought to be dead.)
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In the generations following the last war, the soul known as Tammuz, Endymion, Gilgamesh, and Marcus was reborn three times as a servant girl in the service of a beautiful, angry young lord. Three times, she was beaten and raped to death.
The fourth time the soul known as the Destroyer, the Flame Lord, the Time Keeper, and the Bearer of the Last Hour was reborn after the last and greatest war, he decided he'd had enough of punishing himself, and enough of being punished.
Overnight, the world blossomed into something else, something greater and freer than it had ever been before. In the violence of that change, the soul that had begun it all was reborn three more times, as a politician, a journalist, and a father.
For the first time, he died without violence. When the soul known best as Marcus of the Last Hour was reborn for the eighth time after the last war, the greatest war, the war that changed the placement of the stars, he was himself once more.
The world had moved on; it no longer remembered his names. But he knew himself, and his deeds, and he could still call fire to dance at his fingertips and on the the crown of his head. He could still feel the turning of the earth beneath his feet, and could count the hours with his heartbeat, weak though it was.
He still watched the moon with all the hunger and longing of a drowning man for land- and the moon ignored him, as it had for countless generations, since the begining of time.
When he died, it was in fire; immolated on the pyre of his own epiphanies, the man took back his soul from the moon.
The world moved on, and so did he.
(I'm always more interested in what happens after the end of my stories than the actual stories themselves. And I fucked over the characters in Seventh Hour almost as badly as the ones in Stella Matin. They all ought to be dead.)
------
In the generations following the last war, the soul known as Tammuz, Endymion, Gilgamesh, and Marcus was reborn three times as a servant girl in the service of a beautiful, angry young lord. Three times, she was beaten and raped to death.
The fourth time the soul known as the Destroyer, the Flame Lord, the Time Keeper, and the Bearer of the Last Hour was reborn after the last and greatest war, he decided he'd had enough of punishing himself, and enough of being punished.
Overnight, the world blossomed into something else, something greater and freer than it had ever been before. In the violence of that change, the soul that had begun it all was reborn three more times, as a politician, a journalist, and a father.
For the first time, he died without violence. When the soul known best as Marcus of the Last Hour was reborn for the eighth time after the last war, the greatest war, the war that changed the placement of the stars, he was himself once more.
The world had moved on; it no longer remembered his names. But he knew himself, and his deeds, and he could still call fire to dance at his fingertips and on the the crown of his head. He could still feel the turning of the earth beneath his feet, and could count the hours with his heartbeat, weak though it was.
He still watched the moon with all the hunger and longing of a drowning man for land- and the moon ignored him, as it had for countless generations, since the begining of time.
When he died, it was in fire; immolated on the pyre of his own epiphanies, the man took back his soul from the moon.
The world moved on, and so did he.
Three, Naruto:
Another quote-piece, because I kind of like Hanabi even though Hinata and Neji bore me excessively. (Augh, overly wordy drivel. I do like the concept, I just fail at finding the words for it.)
----
"Hope has two daughters, anger and courage. They are both lovely."
-attributed to St. Augustine
----
Hinata has worn her hitai-ate around her neck since she received it, as is traditional for members of the main house. Neji shadows her footsteps with his head covered when she walks among family. This, too, is tradition: both that she should be escorted and protected, and that she should lead him, literally and figuratively, as the main house leads the lesser members of the clan.
Hanabi walks beside her sister, having earned that right along with the hitai-ate she wears around her bicep. She tailors her stride to match her elder sister's more delicate steps, and she turns her head to better hear her sister's soft voice.
The three of them are rarely seen alone, within the walls of House Hyuuga.
When the elders meet to discuss the future of the clan, Hinata and her sister wait, kneeling outside the meeting room. Hinata keeps her eyes on the ground; Hanabi watches the door. Neji stands behind them, with his head bowed.
When her father beckons Hinata into the room, she goes without a word. She looks him in the eye as she crosses the threshold, and meets the gaze of the clan elders without flinching. The door slides shut behind her almost silently.
Hanabi does not move from her place on the floor, but her hands clench into tiny, deadly fists against her knees. She closes her eyes against the temptation to look behond the closed door. Neji turns his head towards the open window to watch a flock of birds alighting on the roof of an adjoining building.
It is not long before Hinata emerges with her father. She smiles at her sister and her cousin; strips of clean linen bind her forehead, and she is holding her hitai-ate in one hand.
When the elders beckon Hanabi into the room, she looks from her sister to her father, and notes which of them keeps their eyes downcast. She stands and turns her back on her father and the other elders of the clan.
Hinata and Neji follow her to the door. She slides it open with enough force to crack the frame; there is something of Hinata in the grace of her movements, and something of Neji in the pride of her bearing. The anger that burns in her eyes is all her own, however.
The birds scatter, winging over buildings and trees until they disappear, as the three of them emerge.
----
"Hope has two daughters, anger and courage. They are both lovely."
-attributed to St. Augustine
----
Hinata has worn her hitai-ate around her neck since she received it, as is traditional for members of the main house. Neji shadows her footsteps with his head covered when she walks among family. This, too, is tradition: both that she should be escorted and protected, and that she should lead him, literally and figuratively, as the main house leads the lesser members of the clan.
Hanabi walks beside her sister, having earned that right along with the hitai-ate she wears around her bicep. She tailors her stride to match her elder sister's more delicate steps, and she turns her head to better hear her sister's soft voice.
The three of them are rarely seen alone, within the walls of House Hyuuga.
When the elders meet to discuss the future of the clan, Hinata and her sister wait, kneeling outside the meeting room. Hinata keeps her eyes on the ground; Hanabi watches the door. Neji stands behind them, with his head bowed.
When her father beckons Hinata into the room, she goes without a word. She looks him in the eye as she crosses the threshold, and meets the gaze of the clan elders without flinching. The door slides shut behind her almost silently.
Hanabi does not move from her place on the floor, but her hands clench into tiny, deadly fists against her knees. She closes her eyes against the temptation to look behond the closed door. Neji turns his head towards the open window to watch a flock of birds alighting on the roof of an adjoining building.
It is not long before Hinata emerges with her father. She smiles at her sister and her cousin; strips of clean linen bind her forehead, and she is holding her hitai-ate in one hand.
When the elders beckon Hanabi into the room, she looks from her sister to her father, and notes which of them keeps their eyes downcast. She stands and turns her back on her father and the other elders of the clan.
Hinata and Neji follow her to the door. She slides it open with enough force to crack the frame; there is something of Hinata in the grace of her movements, and something of Neji in the pride of her bearing. The anger that burns in her eyes is all her own, however.
The birds scatter, winging over buildings and trees until they disappear, as the three of them emerge.
Two, Naruto: Scars, part 1
First in a series of Ino-centric pieces, inspired by her new hairstyle.
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"Just do it already, forehead-girl." Ino snapped her fingers at Sakura. "I've got places to be."
"What, you have a hot date?" Sakura clapped her hand over her mouth in sudden horror. "Oh, Ino- I didn't mean-"
Ino's eyes flickered away from her friend for a moment, then she smiled wickedly. The movement pulled at her bandages, stretching the skin around her mouth. "Maybe I do. Jealous?"
"I don't have time for dates, Ino-pig. I've got more important things to do." Sakura picked up a set of shears. "Now hold still, or I'll cut your hair again."
"Don't even think about it, forehead girl. It took me three years to grow it back." She held still as Sakura carefully cut away the bandages on the side of her face. "Well? How does it look?"
Sakura said nothing. Ino looked annoyed, and poked her in the forehead. "Hey. Get me a mirror or something, if you won't say anything."
The right side of Ino's face had caught the brunt of a fire jutsu; most of her ear was gone, reduced to a shriveled mass of scar tissue. The burns extended to her cheekbone and along her jawline, and then down her neck. Her hair had already been cut; the bald patches were shiny with burn scars.
It was just one of those freak accidents that sometimes happened. Shikamaru had made a miscalculation, and one of the enemy Sound Nins had slipped through their defenses. Ino had been closest, that was all.
They were Shinobi; this was what they did. Ino knew that. Sakura knew it, too, but she didn't have to like it.
Ino grew impatient with Sakura's reticence; she grabbed Sakura by the chin and pulled her face down so she could use the other girl's hitai-ate as a mirror. "Good thing you wear it where it belongs now, forehead girl."
"Ino!" As Sakura pulled away, the blonde slipped the forehead protector off and examined her face further. "It's-"
"It's fine, Sakura." Ino touched the remains of her ear. "Doesn't hurt at all- and I can hear you just fine."
"But- your face-"
Ino handed back the hitai-ate. "I'll cover it with the rest of my hair. It's not a problem." She slid off the examination table. "I'll see you later- I promised I'd meet Chouji at the shop for lunch."
Sakura watched her go, still gripping her hitai-ate in white knuckled hands.
----
"Just do it already, forehead-girl." Ino snapped her fingers at Sakura. "I've got places to be."
"What, you have a hot date?" Sakura clapped her hand over her mouth in sudden horror. "Oh, Ino- I didn't mean-"
Ino's eyes flickered away from her friend for a moment, then she smiled wickedly. The movement pulled at her bandages, stretching the skin around her mouth. "Maybe I do. Jealous?"
"I don't have time for dates, Ino-pig. I've got more important things to do." Sakura picked up a set of shears. "Now hold still, or I'll cut your hair again."
"Don't even think about it, forehead girl. It took me three years to grow it back." She held still as Sakura carefully cut away the bandages on the side of her face. "Well? How does it look?"
Sakura said nothing. Ino looked annoyed, and poked her in the forehead. "Hey. Get me a mirror or something, if you won't say anything."
The right side of Ino's face had caught the brunt of a fire jutsu; most of her ear was gone, reduced to a shriveled mass of scar tissue. The burns extended to her cheekbone and along her jawline, and then down her neck. Her hair had already been cut; the bald patches were shiny with burn scars.
It was just one of those freak accidents that sometimes happened. Shikamaru had made a miscalculation, and one of the enemy Sound Nins had slipped through their defenses. Ino had been closest, that was all.
They were Shinobi; this was what they did. Ino knew that. Sakura knew it, too, but she didn't have to like it.
Ino grew impatient with Sakura's reticence; she grabbed Sakura by the chin and pulled her face down so she could use the other girl's hitai-ate as a mirror. "Good thing you wear it where it belongs now, forehead girl."
"Ino!" As Sakura pulled away, the blonde slipped the forehead protector off and examined her face further. "It's-"
"It's fine, Sakura." Ino touched the remains of her ear. "Doesn't hurt at all- and I can hear you just fine."
"But- your face-"
Ino handed back the hitai-ate. "I'll cover it with the rest of my hair. It's not a problem." She slid off the examination table. "I'll see you later- I promised I'd meet Chouji at the shop for lunch."
Sakura watched her go, still gripping her hitai-ate in white knuckled hands.
One, Naruto: Cancer
Y'know how, sometimes, a quote or a phrase just rings in your head so perfectly you have to write it into something? Yeah. Also? Given the mission stats of various ninja, it's highly unlikely they sent the same people out day after day to complete incredibly dangerous missions, even during wartime. Just sayin'.
ff.net version
ficwad version
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Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey
-----
"I thought I'd find you here."
Tsunade didn't look tired, but anyone who knew what to look for could tell she was just concealing it with a jutsu. She couldn't hide her body language, and she couldn't hide the ache in her voice.
Orochimaru didn't look up from the sink as he scrubbed meticulously at the bloodstains on his hands.
"You just got back from another mission- what was it this time? Political assassination? Gang war? Angry husband?" She leaned against the wall and stared at the soapy, bloody water gathering in the bottom of the sink; the drain was clogged.
"ANBU missions are classified," he said lightly, and dropped his arm guards into the sink.
"Some records are still public, if you know who to ask. Three assassinations in as many weeks- don't try to pretend you aren't taking an overload." She crossed her arms and glared at him. "What do you think you're doing?"
A tendril of hair snaked out of the loose braid he wore it in and dangled into the bloody water; he tucked it back behind his ear and scrubbed at the blood caking his arm guards. "Using your family conections to investigate my records is hardly honorable, Tsunade-hime."
"I wouldn't have to if you'd just talk to me, damnit!" Her fist slammed into the wall, shattering the ceramic tiles. "What are you trying to prove?"
He finally met her eyes; her jutsu could only do so much to hide exhaustion. He smiled, and she shuddered. "Nothing. I'm not trying to prove anything."
"Don't lie to me."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Tsunade-hime. I'm simply trying to improve myself."
Her mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. "Growth for the sake of growth- that's what cancer does, Orochimaru."
If anything, his smile widened. "You're the physician, Tsunade-hime. How do you intend to treat me?" He reached out with his dripping, bloody, hands and curved them gently around her face. His breath ghosted across her cheek as he spoke in her ear "After all, what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger."
She was paralyzed in his grasp, trembling and powerless. "I'd cut you out," she hissed. "Without a second though, I'd cut you to pieces and burn away any trace of you."
He pressed her against the wall, skin cool and stinking of blood. "Could you? I wonder, Tsunade-hime. Could you really?"
She squeezed her eyes shut. "I would."
He released her with a smirk. "I don't believe you." He went back to cleaning his gear as though he'd never touched her.
She scrubbed at the wetness on her face with a sleeve, still shaking. "I'm not a medic anymore," she spat. "So I guess we'll never know."
He nodded, and tucked another errant strand of hair behind his ear. "You're leaving, then?"
"You're not surprised?"
"We all have to leave eventually." His eyes flashed, gold and slit-pupilled. "Konoha can only offer so much."
She didn't look at him. "That's not- I thought we were friends once. I thought- but you never understood us, did you?"
"It works both ways, Tsunade-hime."
She nodded. It wasn't really a surprise. "Tell Jiraiya I said goodbye."
He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "He'll be hurt."
"What do you care?" She turned to leave, heels clicking over the smooth tiles. She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. "Orochimaru. Cancer is a parasite- it can only survive as long as it has something to feed on. You'll go too far one of these days."
He gave her a thin smile. "That, Tsunade-hime, is precisely the point."
ff.net version
ficwad version
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Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey
-----
"I thought I'd find you here."
Tsunade didn't look tired, but anyone who knew what to look for could tell she was just concealing it with a jutsu. She couldn't hide her body language, and she couldn't hide the ache in her voice.
Orochimaru didn't look up from the sink as he scrubbed meticulously at the bloodstains on his hands.
"You just got back from another mission- what was it this time? Political assassination? Gang war? Angry husband?" She leaned against the wall and stared at the soapy, bloody water gathering in the bottom of the sink; the drain was clogged.
"ANBU missions are classified," he said lightly, and dropped his arm guards into the sink.
"Some records are still public, if you know who to ask. Three assassinations in as many weeks- don't try to pretend you aren't taking an overload." She crossed her arms and glared at him. "What do you think you're doing?"
A tendril of hair snaked out of the loose braid he wore it in and dangled into the bloody water; he tucked it back behind his ear and scrubbed at the blood caking his arm guards. "Using your family conections to investigate my records is hardly honorable, Tsunade-hime."
"I wouldn't have to if you'd just talk to me, damnit!" Her fist slammed into the wall, shattering the ceramic tiles. "What are you trying to prove?"
He finally met her eyes; her jutsu could only do so much to hide exhaustion. He smiled, and she shuddered. "Nothing. I'm not trying to prove anything."
"Don't lie to me."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Tsunade-hime. I'm simply trying to improve myself."
Her mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. "Growth for the sake of growth- that's what cancer does, Orochimaru."
If anything, his smile widened. "You're the physician, Tsunade-hime. How do you intend to treat me?" He reached out with his dripping, bloody, hands and curved them gently around her face. His breath ghosted across her cheek as he spoke in her ear "After all, what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger."
She was paralyzed in his grasp, trembling and powerless. "I'd cut you out," she hissed. "Without a second though, I'd cut you to pieces and burn away any trace of you."
He pressed her against the wall, skin cool and stinking of blood. "Could you? I wonder, Tsunade-hime. Could you really?"
She squeezed her eyes shut. "I would."
He released her with a smirk. "I don't believe you." He went back to cleaning his gear as though he'd never touched her.
She scrubbed at the wetness on her face with a sleeve, still shaking. "I'm not a medic anymore," she spat. "So I guess we'll never know."
He nodded, and tucked another errant strand of hair behind his ear. "You're leaving, then?"
"You're not surprised?"
"We all have to leave eventually." His eyes flashed, gold and slit-pupilled. "Konoha can only offer so much."
She didn't look at him. "That's not- I thought we were friends once. I thought- but you never understood us, did you?"
"It works both ways, Tsunade-hime."
She nodded. It wasn't really a surprise. "Tell Jiraiya I said goodbye."
He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "He'll be hurt."
"What do you care?" She turned to leave, heels clicking over the smooth tiles. She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. "Orochimaru. Cancer is a parasite- it can only survive as long as it has something to feed on. You'll go too far one of these days."
He gave her a thin smile. "That, Tsunade-hime, is precisely the point."
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
sqoi
Someone over at Thirty for Three claimed Setzer/Locke/Edgar.
And turned Setzer into Gambit.
XD Oh man. I- I have no words. I am filled with so much glee- my love for Setzer, of all Final Fantasy characters, is eclipsed only by my love for Cain, which is immense and mighty beyond all immense and mighty things. It just makes me so, so happy to see my favorite characters getting any kind of attention, even if I never find them written quite how I picture them. Setzer as Gambit? That should have been an obvious association, since part of my love for Setzer probably sprang out of my deep and abiding love for Remy LeBeau (because come on, everyone loves Gambit).
However, my Setzer pahks his aihship in Hahvahd Yahd, and comes from one of the snobbiest aristocratic families in Jidoor. He speaks Italian better than English (or Japanese), and sings it better than he speaks it- he spent several summers in the children's chorus at the Opera House before he met Daryl and devoted his life to her and her dreams. (He's also incredibly farsighted, dying of lung cancer, exceedingly fond of blackberry wine, and fully prepared to be dead by the time he is forty.)
And turned Setzer into Gambit.
XD Oh man. I- I have no words. I am filled with so much glee- my love for Setzer, of all Final Fantasy characters, is eclipsed only by my love for Cain, which is immense and mighty beyond all immense and mighty things. It just makes me so, so happy to see my favorite characters getting any kind of attention, even if I never find them written quite how I picture them. Setzer as Gambit? That should have been an obvious association, since part of my love for Setzer probably sprang out of my deep and abiding love for Remy LeBeau (because come on, everyone loves Gambit).
However, my Setzer pahks his aihship in Hahvahd Yahd, and comes from one of the snobbiest aristocratic families in Jidoor. He speaks Italian better than English (or Japanese), and sings it better than he speaks it- he spent several summers in the children's chorus at the Opera House before he met Daryl and devoted his life to her and her dreams. (He's also incredibly farsighted, dying of lung cancer, exceedingly fond of blackberry wine, and fully prepared to be dead by the time he is forty.)
Monday, December 26, 2005
Laaaazy Jane
Oh, man. I love Jason Mraz. And Yoko Kanno, and live piano mixes of Elm and Ganymede Elegy, and live performances of Tank! Mmm, music. I'm going to have many gifts to give Renegades once I get off my arse and start doing stuff. Right now I'm still coasting off of Christmas, but that'll change soon enough.
I have ideas spinning out of my head like gyroscopes, perfectly balanced and floating off into the distance. I'm still nearly two weeks behind on DIP, of course; if I do catch up (and I hope to), most things will be from the original storylines and the cracked out AUs. I've got the Las Vegas roadtrip crew back in the head, and they're always good for some cracked out silliness.
Typos are wonderful things; "suicide rates" become "suicide rats," and oops! There goes another gyroscope.
Aaannd...my family members have this compulsive need to read whatever is on the computer screen whenever I'm sitting here. (And whenever I'm not, the brother tells me, as he stands behind me, reading over my shoulder. Also while beating me. It's good to be home.) It's a bit annoying, having to keep switching windows to something non-incriminating. *sigh*
Don't want to go to work. Want to stay home and read fanfic. Bleh.
I have ideas spinning out of my head like gyroscopes, perfectly balanced and floating off into the distance. I'm still nearly two weeks behind on DIP, of course; if I do catch up (and I hope to), most things will be from the original storylines and the cracked out AUs. I've got the Las Vegas roadtrip crew back in the head, and they're always good for some cracked out silliness.
Typos are wonderful things; "suicide rates" become "suicide rats," and oops! There goes another gyroscope.
Aaannd...my family members have this compulsive need to read whatever is on the computer screen whenever I'm sitting here. (And whenever I'm not, the brother tells me, as he stands behind me, reading over my shoulder. Also while beating me. It's good to be home.) It's a bit annoying, having to keep switching windows to something non-incriminating. *sigh*
Don't want to go to work. Want to stay home and read fanfic. Bleh.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Rantypants
(*cough* *sings* All I want for Christmas is some Kabuto/Itachi...or any Sandsibling interaction...or some Turkfic...or Ikkaku with no shirt...*shuts up*)
Semi-brief rundown of things I cannot stand about the Naruto fandom/Naruto fans/Naruto fanfiction -or- Pairing rants with little to no rationalization:
Sasuke/Sakura. Yeah, I know, "Don't like it, don't read it." I don't read this pairing (or any of the other pairings I dislike), but the fact that it exists at all irritates me. Particularly when it's written in such a way that the two of them are happily in love; Sasuke has far too many issues to ever be in a happy relationship with anyone, and Sakura has far too many issues to ever be in a happy relationship with Sasuke.
Naruto/Hinata just sort of makes me go "ow," because Hinata's social anxiety around him is just that painful. I don't hate the pairing intensely, but I can't ever see it working without Hinata being able to say more than three words to him without hiding behind a wall. (Post timeskip Hinata, for all that we've only seen two panels of her, disappoints me immensely.)
Neji/Hinata. Hate this pairing. Hate hate hate hate hate it. Hate it like poison. Hate it so much I don't even have words to express my hate. Hate it more than Sasuke/Sakura. He's emotionally reticent when it comes to expressing affection (not completely emotionless, just reserved) and still bitter at the main family, and she's kind of in love with Naruto and kind of socially retarded and emotionally fragile- which would lead to her being miserable and afraid to express herself around him, and him being either afraid of shattering her, or impatient with her shyness. But aside from that, you've also got the whole first cousins and children of identical twins.
Given that the Hyuuga are probably already full of inbreeding (I like to think they keep a few buildings in the compound reserved for the care and feeding of genetic disasters- the children no one talks about, whose parents refuse to claim, the ones that would've been left on hillsides before the third Hokage declared that practice inhumane...*far top uninterested in House Hyuuga to ever write that fic*), they would share a bit more genetic material than normal first cousins would, even with the identical-twins parent thing. Incest in fics = occasionally interesting (but not often). Inbreeding in fics = NO.
I want someone to write a Neji/Hinata fic where they get married and fix the clan and then have a beautiful, drooling, three eyed baby. Only I probably still wouldn't read it, because I cannot stand the pairing.
Kakashi/girly!Iruka. Paxnirvana's Kakashi/Iruka series is what got me into Naruto in the first place; I reread it the other day and it made me cringe, because my perception of the characters has shifted so much since last year. Part of it is the fault of the manga for downplaying Iruka so much (I refuse to treat the anime as cannon); part of it is that Kakashi/Iruka is the default sidebar pairing for Sasuke/Naruto, and much of that is written by people who swallow yaoi/shounen ai stereotypes without question. (Occasionally, I hate Japan.) I've got a very short list of Kakashi/Iruka fics that don't make me want to stab someone. Very short.
Mysteriously powerful!Iruka is also kind of annoying. *glances at Blindsided* Good thing I'd never think of doing that in my own fic...(To be fair, I just haven't covered those plot points. Not that anything in that bloody story actually makes sense, mind you.)
Gaara/any female character. HATE. Sakura/Hinata/Ino/TenTen/your Mary Sue/the Ramen Girl isn't going to work him through his mommy issues in this lifetime, let alone soon enough for them to have a meaningful relationship. (Okay, he doesn't really have mommy issues in cannon. But he ought to.) Oh, and people who write Gaara/Temari? Stop that. Just- stop. I mean it, don't make me get the newspaper.
Itachi. I hate Itachi. That's all, really. (But I love Kisame so, so much.)
Yeah, okay, I'm done now.
(DIP: 8/10. I wasn't on my computer at all yesterday, aside from keeping the logs for Renegades, and I haven't done today's yet.)
Semi-brief rundown of things I cannot stand about the Naruto fandom/Naruto fans/Naruto fanfiction -or- Pairing rants with little to no rationalization:
Sasuke/Sakura. Yeah, I know, "Don't like it, don't read it." I don't read this pairing (or any of the other pairings I dislike), but the fact that it exists at all irritates me. Particularly when it's written in such a way that the two of them are happily in love; Sasuke has far too many issues to ever be in a happy relationship with anyone, and Sakura has far too many issues to ever be in a happy relationship with Sasuke.
Naruto/Hinata just sort of makes me go "ow," because Hinata's social anxiety around him is just that painful. I don't hate the pairing intensely, but I can't ever see it working without Hinata being able to say more than three words to him without hiding behind a wall. (Post timeskip Hinata, for all that we've only seen two panels of her, disappoints me immensely.)
Neji/Hinata. Hate this pairing. Hate hate hate hate hate it. Hate it like poison. Hate it so much I don't even have words to express my hate. Hate it more than Sasuke/Sakura. He's emotionally reticent when it comes to expressing affection (not completely emotionless, just reserved) and still bitter at the main family, and she's kind of in love with Naruto and kind of socially retarded and emotionally fragile- which would lead to her being miserable and afraid to express herself around him, and him being either afraid of shattering her, or impatient with her shyness. But aside from that, you've also got the whole first cousins and children of identical twins.
Given that the Hyuuga are probably already full of inbreeding (I like to think they keep a few buildings in the compound reserved for the care and feeding of genetic disasters- the children no one talks about, whose parents refuse to claim, the ones that would've been left on hillsides before the third Hokage declared that practice inhumane...*far top uninterested in House Hyuuga to ever write that fic*), they would share a bit more genetic material than normal first cousins would, even with the identical-twins parent thing. Incest in fics = occasionally interesting (but not often). Inbreeding in fics = NO.
I want someone to write a Neji/Hinata fic where they get married and fix the clan and then have a beautiful, drooling, three eyed baby. Only I probably still wouldn't read it, because I cannot stand the pairing.
Kakashi/girly!Iruka. Paxnirvana's Kakashi/Iruka series is what got me into Naruto in the first place; I reread it the other day and it made me cringe, because my perception of the characters has shifted so much since last year. Part of it is the fault of the manga for downplaying Iruka so much (I refuse to treat the anime as cannon); part of it is that Kakashi/Iruka is the default sidebar pairing for Sasuke/Naruto, and much of that is written by people who swallow yaoi/shounen ai stereotypes without question. (Occasionally, I hate Japan.) I've got a very short list of Kakashi/Iruka fics that don't make me want to stab someone. Very short.
Mysteriously powerful!Iruka is also kind of annoying. *glances at Blindsided* Good thing I'd never think of doing that in my own fic...(To be fair, I just haven't covered those plot points. Not that anything in that bloody story actually makes sense, mind you.)
Gaara/any female character. HATE. Sakura/Hinata/Ino/TenTen/your Mary Sue/the Ramen Girl isn't going to work him through his mommy issues in this lifetime, let alone soon enough for them to have a meaningful relationship. (Okay, he doesn't really have mommy issues in cannon. But he ought to.) Oh, and people who write Gaara/Temari? Stop that. Just- stop. I mean it, don't make me get the newspaper.
Itachi. I hate Itachi. That's all, really. (But I love Kisame so, so much.)
Yeah, okay, I'm done now.
(DIP: 8/10. I wasn't on my computer at all yesterday, aside from keeping the logs for Renegades, and I haven't done today's yet.)
Thursday, December 08, 2005
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
ASLDKJFDKFL. ZIJSDFLK. A:KFJDS.
KINGDOM HEARTS 2. SETZER. WHY DON'T I OWN A PS2 FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY.
GUH. ZIFFLE. *whimper* *DED*
...but where are the scars? And why is his hair all spikey? He's supposed to look like an albino heroin addict ex-gang member, not a bishounen, damnit! On the other hand- Setzer. *wibble*
And I realized last night that when I finish up DIP, I'm going to end up spamming all your poor flists like whoa. Whoops!
KINGDOM HEARTS 2. SETZER. WHY DON'T I OWN A PS2 FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY.
GUH. ZIFFLE. *whimper* *DED*
...but where are the scars? And why is his hair all spikey? He's supposed to look like an albino heroin addict ex-gang member, not a bishounen, damnit! On the other hand- Setzer. *wibble*
And I realized last night that when I finish up DIP, I'm going to end up spamming all your poor flists like whoa. Whoops!
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
tired
Writing...skills...atrophying...using...too many...words...*dies*
Currently six for six on DIP; seven for six if I count my short story for Creative Writing, which I won't, since it sucks and is about as subtle as a Hawai'ian shirt.
Current score:
4 Naruto (Orochimaru, Tsunade; Ino, Sakura; House Hyuuga; Ino)
1 Seventh Hour (wtf, Marcus, since when do you speak to me?)
1 FFVII (wtf, brain, we really didn't want a Hojo)
I'm going to spend most of New Year's Eve editing stuff so that it doesn't suck. Blech.
I have to write a personal evaluation for Creative Writing; my biggest problem this year, aside from the standard problems with plot and originality, was that I always knew much more about the situation than the reader. I wouldn't purposefully conceal anything, but I'd leave out a lot of useful details. Like the fact that Tyler and Dei are half brothers, or that Sabatini was wearing a gun under her jacket when she got out of the car. Or even that Dove got to take a shower and do some laundry before he left; a lot of little details, but things that make my characters and their situations a lot more real to me.
I suppose my real problem was that I didn't actually expend any effort on the class, but shh, that's beside the point.
Currently six for six on DIP; seven for six if I count my short story for Creative Writing, which I won't, since it sucks and is about as subtle as a Hawai'ian shirt.
Current score:
4 Naruto (Orochimaru, Tsunade; Ino, Sakura; House Hyuuga; Ino)
1 Seventh Hour (wtf, Marcus, since when do you speak to me?)
1 FFVII (wtf, brain, we really didn't want a Hojo)
I'm going to spend most of New Year's Eve editing stuff so that it doesn't suck. Blech.
I have to write a personal evaluation for Creative Writing; my biggest problem this year, aside from the standard problems with plot and originality, was that I always knew much more about the situation than the reader. I wouldn't purposefully conceal anything, but I'd leave out a lot of useful details. Like the fact that Tyler and Dei are half brothers, or that Sabatini was wearing a gun under her jacket when she got out of the car. Or even that Dove got to take a shower and do some laundry before he left; a lot of little details, but things that make my characters and their situations a lot more real to me.
I suppose my real problem was that I didn't actually expend any effort on the class, but shh, that's beside the point.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Fandom thoughts, continued
On the evolution of fandom in general, Livejournal, and a bit on Naruto in particular (somewhat a continuation of the previous post, and a response to Loren's comment- which I do mostly agree with). Beware of enormous lurking parentheticals; they have teeth, and very little to do with anything.
I should clarify what I meant by my comments on the general move to Livejournal and other blogging mediums. Eight years ago, you'd have to go searching through fic archives to find a pairing or a genre you wanted to read; if you were lucky, your favorite author would have her own website or archive, and you could rely on link exchanges to lead you to other things within your scope of interest. But that was tedius and often frustrating; broken links and un-navigable or ugly layouts were a definite problem. If you wanted discussion or interaction, you joined a mailing list or a message board that may or may not have had an archive or personal site as a counterpart.
Now, you can find dozens of livejournal communities that serve the same purpose those message boards and mailinglists did- and most things are public for anyone to see, whether they belong to the community or not. This is what I meant by encouraging mob mentality; everyone can join in. There's a transparency of information that wasn't there years ago, when fandom was spread out and difficult to navigate.
It's not about your link exchange and your personal website with its mini-library of fics and your personal bio and your guestbook, floating out in the middle of nowhere. It's about the community of your friends' list. Suddenly your favorite authors are more than a few sentences in their message board profiles; they have lives and can be present in more than just a few scattered fic archives. There is more people to people interaction in fandom now, because it's easier to find a person behind a fic or an essay. It's easier to give and receive feedback, and much easier to start up spontaneous conversations. Things are as much about the people as they are about the source material- and that's not a bad thing, at all- in many ways it's better, and in many ways it's just different. It certainly makes life easier for those of us who are socially retarded, lazy, or bad at html.
Livejournal does segregate fandom; if you don't feel like reading het or slash or gen or what-have-you, you can just avoid the communities or authors that write that sort of thing. You don't have to sift through large archives anymore (though I suppose fanfiction.net has become such an institution that there will always be a large, poorly organized archive to search through; that's kind of comforting, really). It simultaneously brings people in from the fringes and decentralizes areas of interest. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, since it's still fairly easy to expand your interests into other genres and whathaveyou. There are still issues with organization and archiving on LJ, of course- the memories feature is notoriously faulty. But that's just a design flaw, and the LJ people are working on it, albeit slowly.
Me? I'm socially retarded and lazy, though I like to think I'm halfway competent when it comes to html. I'm also resistant to change, which is why I still lurk at the fringes of things and keep my fandom journal off LJ. I do appreciate the decentralization of my fandoms and the ease with which I can stalk my favorite authors; I just find the movement towards decentralization a curious thing.
Heh. To use a horrible but fairly apt simile, the move to livejournal is a lot like a fandom equivalent of a migration to the suburbs. And BNFs are the SUV-driving soccer moms instead of the town politicians. *facepalm*
My previous rant was meant to be less on the changing nature of fandom as a concept over time, and more on the change within fandom over time- mostly because I felt like complaining about how difficult it's become to find decent speculative fic in my favorite fandoms. Both aspects of fandom pose interesting questions, though.
(Other things I like to examine- fandom explosions. A year ago- just one year- there were less than seven thousand fics in the Naruto category at ff.net, and less than 300 at aff.net. (A year ago, at the beginning of my obsession with the series, I did actually search through the entirety of the ff.net archives. Several times. It was still possible to do that back then; now, not so much.) Now there are nearly 20,000 and over 1000 respectively. Explosion. And yeah, ninety percent of everything is crud- I believe that's part of the definition- so it's certainly plausible that the fandom explosion has a lot to do with the declining quality of the fandom output, but I do like to think there's more to it than that. The popularity explosion is fascinating in and of itself. Naruto isn't unique in this, though. Yuugioh actually expanded at a similar rate between '03 and '04, and has since doubled in fic count. But there are fundamental differences in not only the series themselves, but in the release of the series to the non-Japanese market. (Both are distinctly shounen series, but both represent different kinds of shounen-ness, which is an interesting thing in and of itself.) Of course, I neither know nor care about the inner workings of the Yuugioh fandom; I might have, had fate not conspired against me in regards to the series. (I ended up missing the show constantly in highschool because of marching band, I didn't have access to the manga, shows that are blatantly built around merchandising irritate me, and the shippers all seemed to suffer from the Chickenwuss syndrome- something that has absolutely nothing to do with the people themselves or with the series, and everything to do with the depth of my hatred for the Seifer/Zell pairing in FFVIII. And god, don't even get me started on FFVIII, or I really will write that Sorceress!Selphie fic where Rinoa turns into Ultimecia a few generations early and all of the orphanage brats are mako junkies.))
It's true that Naruto, as a fandom, doesn't really have any BNFs according to the generally accepted definition of the term- it's outgrown them. This seems happens whenever a fandom gets too large, particularly now that fandoms generally center around livejournal, which contributes to the phasing out of Big Names by segregating people according to their ships, genre preferences, or RP groups. I would say that there were BNFs according to the accepted definition of the term, but all of them have since left the fandom. Kind of like Elvis, and the building. If they hadn't left, the size explosion probably would've rendered them obsolete, anyway.
(I'd go on an aside rant about how well-known authors and BNFs are not automatically good writers, but that's so been done before. I'd probably just end up being mean, anyway, and there's no point in flaming people if they aren't going to hear about it. Sometimes quasi-anonymity does have its drawbacks.)
Someday, perhaps, I'll dig up all my disjunct thoughts on fandom and compile them into something coherent. Perhaps. Until then, you get my meandering, procrastinatory discussions of things that have very little to do with what I ought to be writing right now. I'm sure my roommate is convinced that I'm working hard on my paper, though. And keeping up appearances is so very important. :)
December's Impossible Project (DIP) current score: one for one, Naruto. (Good to know I haven't completely lost interest in the actual series, eh?) Let's see how long I can keep this up.
I should clarify what I meant by my comments on the general move to Livejournal and other blogging mediums. Eight years ago, you'd have to go searching through fic archives to find a pairing or a genre you wanted to read; if you were lucky, your favorite author would have her own website or archive, and you could rely on link exchanges to lead you to other things within your scope of interest. But that was tedius and often frustrating; broken links and un-navigable or ugly layouts were a definite problem. If you wanted discussion or interaction, you joined a mailing list or a message board that may or may not have had an archive or personal site as a counterpart.
Now, you can find dozens of livejournal communities that serve the same purpose those message boards and mailinglists did- and most things are public for anyone to see, whether they belong to the community or not. This is what I meant by encouraging mob mentality; everyone can join in. There's a transparency of information that wasn't there years ago, when fandom was spread out and difficult to navigate.
It's not about your link exchange and your personal website with its mini-library of fics and your personal bio and your guestbook, floating out in the middle of nowhere. It's about the community of your friends' list. Suddenly your favorite authors are more than a few sentences in their message board profiles; they have lives and can be present in more than just a few scattered fic archives. There is more people to people interaction in fandom now, because it's easier to find a person behind a fic or an essay. It's easier to give and receive feedback, and much easier to start up spontaneous conversations. Things are as much about the people as they are about the source material- and that's not a bad thing, at all- in many ways it's better, and in many ways it's just different. It certainly makes life easier for those of us who are socially retarded, lazy, or bad at html.
Livejournal does segregate fandom; if you don't feel like reading het or slash or gen or what-have-you, you can just avoid the communities or authors that write that sort of thing. You don't have to sift through large archives anymore (though I suppose fanfiction.net has become such an institution that there will always be a large, poorly organized archive to search through; that's kind of comforting, really). It simultaneously brings people in from the fringes and decentralizes areas of interest. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, since it's still fairly easy to expand your interests into other genres and whathaveyou. There are still issues with organization and archiving on LJ, of course- the memories feature is notoriously faulty. But that's just a design flaw, and the LJ people are working on it, albeit slowly.
Me? I'm socially retarded and lazy, though I like to think I'm halfway competent when it comes to html. I'm also resistant to change, which is why I still lurk at the fringes of things and keep my fandom journal off LJ. I do appreciate the decentralization of my fandoms and the ease with which I can stalk my favorite authors; I just find the movement towards decentralization a curious thing.
Heh. To use a horrible but fairly apt simile, the move to livejournal is a lot like a fandom equivalent of a migration to the suburbs. And BNFs are the SUV-driving soccer moms instead of the town politicians. *facepalm*
My previous rant was meant to be less on the changing nature of fandom as a concept over time, and more on the change within fandom over time- mostly because I felt like complaining about how difficult it's become to find decent speculative fic in my favorite fandoms. Both aspects of fandom pose interesting questions, though.
(Other things I like to examine- fandom explosions. A year ago- just one year- there were less than seven thousand fics in the Naruto category at ff.net, and less than 300 at aff.net. (A year ago, at the beginning of my obsession with the series, I did actually search through the entirety of the ff.net archives. Several times. It was still possible to do that back then; now, not so much.) Now there are nearly 20,000 and over 1000 respectively. Explosion. And yeah, ninety percent of everything is crud- I believe that's part of the definition- so it's certainly plausible that the fandom explosion has a lot to do with the declining quality of the fandom output, but I do like to think there's more to it than that. The popularity explosion is fascinating in and of itself. Naruto isn't unique in this, though. Yuugioh actually expanded at a similar rate between '03 and '04, and has since doubled in fic count. But there are fundamental differences in not only the series themselves, but in the release of the series to the non-Japanese market. (Both are distinctly shounen series, but both represent different kinds of shounen-ness, which is an interesting thing in and of itself.) Of course, I neither know nor care about the inner workings of the Yuugioh fandom; I might have, had fate not conspired against me in regards to the series. (I ended up missing the show constantly in highschool because of marching band, I didn't have access to the manga, shows that are blatantly built around merchandising irritate me, and the shippers all seemed to suffer from the Chickenwuss syndrome- something that has absolutely nothing to do with the people themselves or with the series, and everything to do with the depth of my hatred for the Seifer/Zell pairing in FFVIII. And god, don't even get me started on FFVIII, or I really will write that Sorceress!Selphie fic where Rinoa turns into Ultimecia a few generations early and all of the orphanage brats are mako junkies.))
It's true that Naruto, as a fandom, doesn't really have any BNFs according to the generally accepted definition of the term- it's outgrown them. This seems happens whenever a fandom gets too large, particularly now that fandoms generally center around livejournal, which contributes to the phasing out of Big Names by segregating people according to their ships, genre preferences, or RP groups. I would say that there were BNFs according to the accepted definition of the term, but all of them have since left the fandom. Kind of like Elvis, and the building. If they hadn't left, the size explosion probably would've rendered them obsolete, anyway.
(I'd go on an aside rant about how well-known authors and BNFs are not automatically good writers, but that's so been done before. I'd probably just end up being mean, anyway, and there's no point in flaming people if they aren't going to hear about it. Sometimes quasi-anonymity does have its drawbacks.)
Someday, perhaps, I'll dig up all my disjunct thoughts on fandom and compile them into something coherent. Perhaps. Until then, you get my meandering, procrastinatory discussions of things that have very little to do with what I ought to be writing right now. I'm sure my roommate is convinced that I'm working hard on my paper, though. And keeping up appearances is so very important. :)
December's Impossible Project (DIP) current score: one for one, Naruto. (Good to know I haven't completely lost interest in the actual series, eh?) Let's see how long I can keep this up.