sinnatious

...Are people still on LJ? I haven't posted or written in ages! Real life got very very chaotic without any warning, and there was a lot of stuff going on, which I will likely post about sometime in the next week or so, although life doesn't seem to be slowing down at all so maybe not.

Anyhow, that's not what I'm posting about. I'm posting because it's that time of year again!

Yes, Xmas giftfic prompt time!

I'll probably regret this, but I also haven't done much writing the past three months and I miss it. Still chipping away at my boatload of WIPs (urgh and managed to get into Kaitou Kid fandom as well, adding to that already generous pile) but some shortfics seems like a good way to keep me in a posting habit.

Rules are the same as last year:

A. Fandom and/or universe
B. Characters and/or pairings, if any
C. Some kind of prompt (keep it to one sentence max please).

I'm willing to attempt to tackle pretty much anything, though keep in mind I never manage to fill even half of the prompts and your odds of getting your prompt filled are higher if it's something I've at least displayed some interest in or knowledge of. As always no promises about length or quality of what I churn out, sometimes I get a bit experimental with these things and they also don't usually get much in the way of editing. I'll endeavour to get some out before Christmas but we all know what my timeline is normally like. ;)

So get prompting!


This post is now closed for prompts. Hopefully some fics will be coming your way very soon. Merry Christmas everyone!

I have an important link to share that will be of interest to any FF7 fans who read Dear Kunsel - lithic_rune has written a really good sequel here that should satisfy a lot of people left unhappy with the original ending.

( Bravely Default and MekakuCity )

There's only two of these travel posts left now!

Picking up where I left off last time, we caught the train from Montreal to New York, because we were cheapskates and it was like a quarter of the price of flying. It was actually a pretty comfy trip, about seven hours long, plus about forty minutes at the border for customs and immigration. There was only something like ten other passengers so it wasn't too bad, aside from about half an hour where the elderly chinese guy sang along to his headphones.



The scenery was quite nice for a lot of it though.

( Lots of photos of awesome famous places under the cut )

It's a little bit early, but I'm opening this post for Christmas giftfic prompts! Because it turns out I'm a slave to masochistic traditions.

This is an especially dumb idea this year on my part, because I am going globe-trotting so theoretically will probably not have much time for fic-writing. But what time I will have is probably better suited to short fics, and I'm almost finished with A(r)mour, and maybe if I post now I'll manage to get at least a couple of giftfics out before Christmas? One can only hope! Though let's be realistic, I only gave up on last year's lot five months ago, fully expect that timeline to repeat itself.

I almost certainly won't be able to fill all of them, historically I tend to max out around a dozen, but then again you never know, maybe THIS will be the year I manage to keep them drabble-length! With that in mind, as usual there are also no promises of length or quality, giftfics always tend to be a bit of a mixed bag in terms of output and yeah, I've been known to get experimental with them (and experiments sometimes fail).

Okay, so rules for prompting!

Format for prompt is something like this:

A. Fandom and/or universe
B. Characters and/or pairings, if relevant (if you just give me a straight up fandom prompt I’ll choose the characters myself)
C. Some kind of prompt, e.g. 'Barret has a crippling fear of tonberries'. Max one sentence.

Fandoms are somewhat open, but obviously your odds of getting your prompt filled are higher if you stick to something I have at some point displayed knowledge of or interest in. Feel free to ask if you're not sure, or if I don't know the fandom very well I'll tell you and you can prompt something else if you want.

I think that covers it! Most of you guys already know the score I'm sure. :P

In other news, the cosplay masterlist has been updated, and Kill La Kill has turned out to be an immensely entertaining anime despite (or maybe because of) the hilariously gratuitous nudity and ludicrous setting.

This post is now closed for new prompts - hang onto your plot bunnies for next Xmas!

As some people on the flist already know, about two months ago I had yet another company dissolve underneath my feet. It sucks, because that's the third time this has happened in four years, but I'm actually pretty used to this by now, and in my paranoia had been living well below my means and saving a good chunk of my paycheck, so was well prepared.

But I'm also sick of watching my savings wither away every damn time I lose my job, so this time figured I may as well do something with it!

That something is travelling.

After doing some math, I realised that going globe-trotting was actually not all that much more expensive than sitting at home job-hunting (because Australia). And I can job-hunt anywhere!  Pretty much all of my job-hunting is done on the internet now anyways - my last two interviews were done over Skype. And considering a good 70% of the positions I've been applying for are overseas anyhow... I figure I can dedicate an hour or two a day to my usual job crawl/e-mail/networking rubbish, and spend the rest of the time being an obnoxious tourist.  (Also 'globe-trotting' is about the coolest fill you can get for a gap on your resume.)  That seems like it will be more productive than wasting time on the internet, which is surely what would happen if I stayed here.

I'm heading to Singapore first off for a few days. Have a couple of must-dos on my list like the Singaporean Flyer (because Ferris Wheels) and the bird park, hopefully catching up with some Singaporean peeps as well. Then a couple of days in Taipei for the hell of it (because even with accommodation it was cheaper to stop over than fly direct), then Japan for a month or two! I have a travel buddy for the first week or so in Tokyo, after that, I'll probably just do my usual thing and get lost in random places and meet up with a few people if I can swing it. I, um, actually haven't really planned much beyond that yet.  Canada and America at some point afterwards to couch surf with friends and family there? Might try to spend a bit more time in Asia first, see if I can't miss the worst of northern hemisphere winter, given that I am delicate little Queensland hothouse flower. Will depend somewhat on what sort of deals are floating around on flights. Would love to do at least a bit of Europe too, but that will depend entirely on how quickly I run out of money.

So when my lease ended a week or so ago, I packed up and didn't bother getting a new one.  I'm kicking back my heels at my folk's house for a couple of weeks up until I leave, partially because it's free but also because I haven't visited in a couple of years and thought it would be nice to put in some time, since as a collective my siblings and I have been very slack about visiting. Perhaps too slack if the cornucopia of favourite foods they stocked the fridge with is any indication. Getting a little too enthusiastic there, guys. They've taken empty-nesting surprisingly well but given the propensity of my brothers to randomly disappear off the face of the planet and then resurface in another country without warning they are understandably concerned when I start making open-ended travel plans, and appear to be trying to lure me back with the memory of delicious food. It will probably work.

Although that said, man, small towns. It was nice and relaxing for the first few days, actually - fresh air, eerily quiet, and wow you can actually see the stars at night. But it has become quickly offset by the sheer amount of religious stuff strewn around the house and the general frustration that is small-town living for someone who has become acclimated to living in the city. I am already antsy to get back to Brisneyland for Supanova.

So that's what's going to be happening! More travelling, probably lots of travel posts, no idea what this will do to my writing schedule yet - travelling has a tendency to massively inspire me, but there's also the reduced convenience. Well, I'm sure I'll have enough time to kill in planes and trains and airports to get a bit of that sort of thing done. It's all kind of exciting and kind of scary, too. If anyone has some good suggestions of places to go/see, things to do, or other travel advice, please hit me with it!

A quick poll!  I've probably asked this question in the past, but I once again am mulling over whether shorter chapters and quicker update times are better, or longer chapters less frequently updated. Of course we'd love to have the best of both worlds but I don't write that fast anymore.

Obviously the length of chapters can vary wildly, as some longer scenes simply refuse to be cleanly split, and other times the chapter ends best at an earlier scene, but there are occasions when I find myself faced with a series of longer chapters that could be split in half to shorter ones and can never quite decide which side of the fence to fall on. So here's a quick poll to abdicate responsibility to internet acquaintances and strangers!

[Poll #1930712]

In other news, I've been plodding along at an okay rate on all of my WIPs, but I'll likely be posting the Junjou Romantica one soon since it was already quite far along and is thus on the homeward stretch. Would be nice to get it out of the way. I'm also despairing at it and so am eager to get it out of my hair so it won't bother me anymore and I can focus on other hopefully better fics.

In other other news, I've just started reading the Bloody Monday manga and it's surprisingly awesome. Am holding off on recommending until I see how it ends, but so far it's a solid hacker crime drama that is not totally obtuse about how computers work for once, and has had some pretty cool twists! I've been feeling a bit of a void in the awesome mind game genre since Code Geass ended and this has gone some way in slaking my thirst. (Whilst simultaneously making my hunger for it even worse).

Also I got sucked into Animal Crossing.  I'd been playing for all of two hours, just got my hands on my bug net, and a dragonfly appears next to me.  I netted it on reflex, and the game lost its shit - 'YOU DID IT! YOU CAUGHT A BANDED DRAGONFLY!'  Then last night I caught a scorpion and it didn't seem to care. I don't understand what's happening, but Zero Punctuation's review feels pretty accurate so far.  But I like that you can visit each other's towns with friend codes! I feel like a awesome massive cheat since rafira came by and dumped off a bunch of glorious fruit so now I have a veritable rainbow of an orchard happening! I've been pretty lucky so far in general, really. Anyone else on the flist playing?

On Writing

( On writing, also video games: Persona 4 Arena and Devil Survivor 2 )

On a side note...

Iron Man 3 was awesome. Star Dark: Into The Darkness was even more awesome and gave me an incredible appetite for BAMF!Bones-centric canon-verse genfic, which is apparently an incredibly rare and specific taste (and have subsequently expanded my acceptance to Reaper!Bones fics). I would also totally be on board for any Sulu or Chekov canon-verse genfic. For such an old and massive fandom, the pickings are surprisingly slim in terms of decent canon-verse genfic in general, actually.  If anyone has recs, pretty please sling them my way.

It was Wai-Con on the weekend!  Some of you may recall my cosplay freakouts from the leadup.

Not much sleep was had the night before flying over to Perth!  Sleeping is for the plane.  Once I landed, though, it was pretty much non-stop!  We had cosplay skit rehearsals to do, plus shopping and eating and meeting so many new people!  Not to mention all the last-minute cosplay making and trips to Spotlight!

I'll skip all of that, and go straight to what people really care about - the con!

( Wai-Con is the best con )