broken-nosed gods

Fell off the posting wagon, oops. I'll do days 13 and 14 later, but today, from skygiants I present: the unwritten Utena crossover I would most like to see!

You did this to me on purpose, didn't you. I can tell.

There's a lot of Utena crossovers that would be really great; I've always wanted to see a Ranma 1/2 crossover where Kodachi and Nanami meet. And there's all kinds of interesting stuff you could do with the Utena movie and things that are either in a totally different genre but similar visually or things that are technically in a similar genre but visually completely different. Even—maybe especially—in a written medium. So stuff like Sailor Moon/Utena would be pretty cool. Actually, the idea of 'student from thing x transfers to Ohtori Academy' is pretty winning all by itself.

But AS I'M SURE YOU, BECCA, ALREADY KNOW my favorite unwritten Utena crossover is the Gokusen one I promised to write you and then never finished because i was in a bad place emotionally to be writing humor at the time.* (It is still in the works, though! How could I not write such gems as 'Shin, grown-up law student, is constantly mistaken for a middle schooler' and 'Yankumi makes up elaborate plan that involves kicking Akio in the face'. How could I deprive myself of that.)

I just adore the idea of Yankumi putting together one of her complicated undercover disguise plans to root out bad stuff going on in a school, and the idea of her going after somebody like Akio is really satisfying. The idea of her vs. Akio specifically is GREAT, because if Akio is vulnerable to anything it is a) really sincere people who can't be seduced or distracted and b) physical attack.

There's also the aspect of Yankumi and Shin as a grown-up team running their own operations, where Shin is either in or just out of law school. They're on their own, without backup, in a very dangerous place—but because of their personalities and history, you'd never have to be too afraid for them. Yankumi is kind of uniquely placed to be able to deal with or avoid the particular pitfalls of Ohtori Gakuen, and while Shin is less so I do feel like the things that would be aimed at him are things he could deal with.

Except for being mistaken for a middle schooler when he's a graduate student disguised as a high schooler. he is not equipped for that.


*I still feel like I'm not quite ready to sit down and write it yet. It's hard for me to be whole-heartedly, genuinely funny—I find that weird dadaist humor that's popular on Tumblr right now to be much easier.


December meme post is here.

just heard about this from retrogrammartown.

I hate learning that stuff, it's like the creepy background music in a psychological horror movie, the creeping sensation that there's nothing, nothing, nothing safe -- you'll never have anything left that hasn't been ruined.

At some level I just don't want to know it, because it doesn't end at 'this artist did a shitty thing'; it makes you look at the things they made in that light, and knowing something you love has that behind it isn't a thing you can just stop thinking about. It follows you around forever, and some times in your life you will just turn around and think 'ikuhara kunihiko is transphobic and probably a rapist' and oh, there it goes.

This information is important to know about and be aware of; I just wish it wasn't.


so, artists! STOP BEING SHITTY PEOPLE SO I CAN LIKE YOUR STUFF IN PEACE. i guess.

I was looking through some old 750 Words entries, and I came across quite a lot of stuff that was going to be history of the rose until that turned into an entirely different fic. But the quality of writing in them is probably better than the actual fic turned out to be (not that I don't love it as it is) and it seems a bit of a shame for them to be lost to the depths of the internets. ( So! Princess Tutu/Utena crossover bits. )

When I'm done with all my required classes, I am seriously and for real taking nothing but languages. I love languages! Languages are cool, languages are awesome! Languages do not leave me stressed and crying about my inability to write coherent papers to the standards of my teachers and fellow students!

I am not even kidding. Learning lists of vocabulary, memorizing hanzi, taking tests, doing group mini-presentations with twenty minutes to prepare = no problem. One-page introduction to term paper = FREAK THE FUCK OUT AND COME UP WITH NOTHING WORTHWHILE. (Also, crying.)


A question for the ages: Am I really that good at learning hanzi, or are my classmates just not writing them down over and over again as something to do with their hands while people talk?


On a side note, I have discovered this! It's a bunch of stuff the writer of Utena said about people's backstory, and wow does some of it ever make sense. Enokido Youji & co are great writers.

So I think I wrote a lot less than last year, but more fic & ideas for/of fic actually happened? Which is to say, I am very unsatisfied with myself all around, but I actually made some stuff.

Leitmotif(s) of the year: Freedom, escape (as usual); relationships that may or may not be romance, no one is quite sure; poetry; meta-fiction; and "Well, what do we do now?"

Favorite(s) of the batch: history of the rose, because even though I don't think it's particularly well-written, it's a bunch of things I love all squished together.

Best of the batch: streets and skies and open doors is the only thing I wrote this year where I feel like I really got everything just (almost) the way I wanted it. Writing is a giant pain sometimes, because I keep wanting everything to be a great big spiral of perfect, but honestly if I can get the phrasing and imagery right then the rest doesn't matter that much.

Most underappreciated by the universe: ars poetica, first fic in which I publicly mentioned Tracey Davies and poetry in the same sentence. I feel like I got more of the imagery right here than in the actual poems I wrote for her, mostly because actual poetry is a fucking pain in the ass.

Favorite first lines: My actual favorite first line is Their lives are made of ink and paper, which was going to be in history of the rose until that turned into a completely different fic. My favorite posted line is Latin leaves me like an ex-boyfriend, from wizard-born.

Most fun to write: no such thing as silence was super fun, because it is one of those short crunchy character-sketch fics, self-introspection cheap at twice the price. And I learned that I really do love Taki quite a lot.

Sexiest fic: (not gonna write you a) love song, which I have barely even started on, because I'm still hashing out all the characters in my head. I'm not even sure it's going to have romance in it, let alone sex, but it is still the sexiest thing I have written all year, because it involves a lot of girls staring at each others' hands or hair or mouths. This untitled Chrome fic is probably a lot closer to the traditional definition of sexy, but it's actually asexy so it doesn't count.

"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you" fic: That Hermione-goes-to-Ohtori fic. It is self-indulgent crossover meta-tastic idfic at its finest, and at some point I will finish it and post the damn thing.

Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: (not gonna write you a) love song, absolutely. The reason none of it is done is that I'm spending lots and lots of time thinking about Pansy and Parvati and Tracey and Ginny and Hermione, and I still haven't gotten their basic characteristics all worked out in my head yet. But it's going to be fantastic.

New pairing/genre/fandom you never predicted writing in January: I certainly didn't think I was even going to consider writing Mahou no Tenshi Creamy Mami fic! And yet it is happening.

Hardest fic to write: ALL THE ONES I HAVEN'T FINISHED YET. Everything I have finished was easy, otherwise I couldn't have done it. These current ones, now, these ones are hard.

Biggest disappointment: ME. More particularly, the fact that I haven't written those help_pakistan and help_japan fics yet. They're on the work table, I swear! It's just going slow.

Biggest surprise: The amount of fics I actually did manage to write this year, even if they're tiny.

Most telling fic: silence speaks louder than words, I think. The way Taki relates to the world is not the way I relate to the world, but the way she reacts to great pressure is the way I hope I would.

What's next? Finishing some of the things I've started. Starting some of the things I've talked about. DEFINITELY NO THOR FIC. I refuse!

Yesterday was Arisugawa Juri's birthday, and the day before was Mikage Souji's! (By the way, today (though not for much longer) is Alfie Enoch's birthday, the guy who played Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter movies.)

I am pretty sure there is only one fictional character's birthday I will ever remember to mention in a timely fashion, and it's on the same day as my own. :/

Does anyone else in my little corner of DW/LJ remember/celebrate* fictional characters' birthdays at all, or am I alone here?


*Read: fail at celebrating.

I spent basically all of yesterday texting eisen! Great fun was had. However, more importantly, I translated bits and pieces of the Utena audio drama for her! And then I remembered that I know other people with even less knowledge of Japanese than me who would probably like to know the contents of an UTENA AUDIO DRAMA. So here is what I translated yesterday! More to follow at some point.

( Tidbits ahoy! Mostly about Touga, b/c he is hilarious. )

Happy birthday, Kiryuu Nanami!

I feel like I should have written fic or something. Maybe next year?

I'm suffering from a terrible, terrible temptation. It's truly awful; I can't believe I'm even thinking of considering to entertain such an idea. But I can't help it. *sadface*

You see, this Harry Potter fic I'm kind-of-sort-of working on is the equivalent of the (last part of the) Utena movie, in its basic plot (a bunch of people want to get away to the outside world, some of them turn into vehicles so they all can, everybody escapes and is happy). So I was thinking hmmm, wouldn't it be fun to come up with a title that referenced the movie?

And then, later today, something made me think of Evangelion, and that one spin-off manga I really liked (but never finished). You know the one: Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gakuen Datenroku, aka NGE Academy: Record of Heaven's Descent, that second half also sometimes translated as Apocalypse. Since the Utena movie's title is Adolescence Apocalypse . . . hmm.

So now I desperately want to call this here Harry Potter fic Record of Hogwarts Dissent -- since, you know, it's about a bunch of students at Hogwarts and their disbelief in and resistance against the dominant social paradigm.* Even though I know the literal definition of 'apocalypse' is something like 'unveiling' or 'revelation', and the thing I'd be referencing is not actually the thing I want to allude to. That is to say, I would technically be referencing it, but by way of alluding to something else that is mostly unrelated and therefore pointless.


Naturally, I would be VERY GRATEFUL if anyone would help me come up with a better title. *nudge nudge*


*I can totally use big words like all you smart people! See?

Am failing to write my Yuletide fic (despite the fact that I am leaving for the Land of No Internet in less than a week and need to get it done by then) due to being overdosed on male characters. I need to write some LADIES, y'all. Or anyone who is not this particular dude (much as I love him). So! A meme, stolen from bookelfe:

Give me a character that I know, and I'll write 2-3 sentences about their experiences in Ohtori Academy and/or their experiences in Gold Crown Town.

There is no way this meme cannot be awesome. \o/