Title: Fish For the Devil
Rating: PG for language and some mildly sexual content (no kissyface, promise!)
Fandom: domino_effect
Summary: Trapped in the lobby of a clothing store with Em and Scylla making no promises of shopping any faster, Joey and Tristan find a way to amuse themselves via Emily's tarot deck. If you can't guess how by the title, I'm not gonna tell you.
A/N: Holy hell. I haven't posted anything in ages and then I throw you half-coherent and mostly irreverent dreck?
___________

"Do you have any cups?" Tristan glanced up at Joey over his current fan of twelve cards. They should have known better than to play "Go Fish" with only two people, and he had the miserable card count to prove it. They played out of boredom, trapped in the lobby of the clothing store while their companions were off doing something arcanely feminine.

( 15 Minutes Previously... )

Title: Five Things That Never Happened During the Firebringer Trilogy
Author: bardicsidhe
Rating: PG
Warnings: Contains (non-graphic) character death.
Summary: Written for that darn Five Things challenge that I can't for the life of me find a link to the rules of. If someone knows, help me out? I wore myself out googling for it.
Note: If you feel like contributing, the gauntlet has been thrown down here. If you want to write but can't post there and don't want to join the Group, just let me know where it's posted, and I'll post a link on the challenge board once you're finished so that the group can find your story and enjoy it too. :3

*****

For the whole of the homeward journey, Tek's forehead ached with the firebowl's burn. Yet it was no match for the slowly smoldering ache within her heart. She wondered if it always would. She hoped so. Like the stories of the lightning storm three hundred years before that swallowed a quarter of the mountain firs, Tek imagined her soul would lay like dead dark ash and smoking coals even beneath a soaking rain.

She had survived the wyvern queen's sting only with her mother's late help. The wyvern queen, killed at the cost of Jan's life.

( Read more... )

I want to direct you towards my memories. There's some interesting stuff in there. But more importantly, there are links to some phenomenal House/Wilson fics that I stumbled across by accident.

The House/Wilson Filter

At the bottom of that list, you'll find several links to the Dæmon-verse by dominus_trinus. I'm still reading and compiling, because there's been some written since the first three - I know that because I followed a link back from the one I had been reading, which isn't part of these three.

You'll be entertained if you've read Pullman's "His Dark Materials", OR even if you only know about concept of Dæmons from the movie or the movie's nifty flash website. The characters are nicely written, the Dæmons are thoughtfully chosen, and the relationship is beautifully crafted. I guarantee you'll have a favorite Dæmon chosen of the two presented in full in this arc, and if you're like me, you'll be trying to piece together what other characters' Dæmons are.

There's at least one or two people on my flist who'll be staring at the idea of petting each other's souls as a kind of intimate foreplay. Do I suddenly want to write AU DE-verse involving Pullman's world? Oh, you bet I do. I won't inflict it on you, because I haven't any more understanding of it than the average moviegoer, but nevertheless, the idea of Tristan's soul embodied as a red wolf is quite, quite appealing.

All My Children - soap opera I have watched forever. I have a beef. Feel free to look away if it disturbs you to know this about me.

Ryan and Annie make me gag.

I adore Ryan. I've adored Ryan and his actor - Cameron Mathison - for ages. But why do they insist on throwing the badass bikerboy with the fluffy little chippies? Seriously. They throw them together over trumped-up circumstances, then put them through hell together, so the audience will accept it.

Unfortunately, I'm not buying the "I had a sperm donor sire my child and it JUST SO HAPPENS that YOU, Ryan, were my anonymous sperm donor, so now we even have a biological daughter to seal our love!"

I think it's utter sappy ridiculous shit. That's a coincidence that even DE characters would goggle at, and that's saying something. The wedding today was the icing on the cake, excuse the pun.

I'm all for Ryan falling in love, though I'm still pissed over the fact that it's not Kendall ... but I'm sick of AMC writers turning his love affairs into sugary sapfests. They did it with Greenlee (the Dynamite Kiddo ring, anyone? Gyeh.), and they're doing it with Annie. Ryan's very first wife - the late, lamented Gillian - was a spitfire who constantly kept Ryan on his toes. Kendall's relationship(s) with Ryan were the definition of fiery. Why are they trading sexy dark chocolate out for vanilla tapioca? It's a soap opera. I don't want to see my favorite male lead settle down and start popping out a suburban family and taking the kids to soccer practice until he's almost fifty and I'm not hot for him anymore, a la Tad Martin.

I'm going to start writing Ryan/Aidan* slash. That beats the hell out of Ryan/Annie any day. The AMC fanficcers will probably tear out my jugular, but if I can't have Ryan/Kendall I will get my fix somehow.




*Tall, dark, handsome British espionage expert with a killer accent and a sexy grin. Not talented journalist/author with dual citizenship and cool color-of-the-month hair.

...A really addictive fanfic, that has some minor flaws and some major plot holes and all in all, was satisfying in a lowdown dirty way even if it wasn't that brilliant. The plot was obviously manufactured to provide as many excuses for sex as possible, but I can't help it, I liked the feelings it drew up. And really...the premise could have been awesome, had the potential to be mind-blowingly hot and clever. It was just that the execution of the story fell short...which happens, sometimes and is really nobody's fault. There's a difference between knowing a storyline could be awesome, and then executing it so that it is. I've fallen way flat on things that could have been awesome, and I've seen it happen to other people.

The premise could be applied to any other canon of any other series. It's one of those 'genetic mutation' things, shifting the genetic behavioral patterns just a little bit, introducing animal traits like territorial possessiveness, aggression towards competitors, fighting to attain dominance, a set of gestures as a means to communication, bonding between a number of individuals into a 'family' unit... pack behavior, wolves. The characters still maintain their ability to (mostly) function as humans, but are helpless to instinctive responses.

The idea of throwing it at DE-Manhattan in an enclosed space kept me busy all morning. We have a variety of dominant personalities, I could already see three to four of the men alone getting into battles for supremacy, and that's not even including Mai, who could probably kick everyone's ass if she had to, especially if they infringed on her territory bar. I was trying to figure out who'd come out on top, but I think it'd be mostly a matter of luck and timing.

...It's still pestering me. It's one of those bizarrely interesting concepts that's going to pester me all day, I'm sure.

I feel better, in case you can't tell. *wry* More later. And congrats to nightengale, in her new apartment! Way to go, hon!

You know...I was just amused by a thought after working on last night's log. What if... domino_effect was a television show, and our various 'scenes' were episodes? And we had millions of viewers (some part of a community fandom) watching our episodes and making inferences about the characters?

My main thought was subtext. I can just imagine viewers sitting on the couch watching the show and going "And the good Ship [insert pairing] saaaaails into port." And I wondered what kind of unintentional subtext we'd be presenting to viewers. XD Maybe we would WTF at a pairing, but is there 'evidence' in the RP to support it? Would there be 'crack' pairings? Would there be 'rival' pairings? *snickersnort* Random, yes. Off to work now.

Right, okay. How the hell did a fairly innocent and straightforward smut plot writing prompt (behind the wheel of a car "Don't worry, I'm good at this!" Nickelback, anyone?) turn into a PG-rated storm chasing sequence?

...

Okay. I think I'm gonna write the smut anyway in an alternate story. Just to prove I still can.

I fully blame it on Helen Hunt and not Seto this time that Duke and Tristan (and Rafael, Valon, and Joey) ended up in Oklahoma. Damn Twister eats my brain even when I haven't watched it recently. XD

All right. All right all right all right. I GET that some people have nothing to do with yaoi/yuri 'shipping. I can respect that - after all, it does take particular tastes and some pretty deep insight to look past the normal heterosexual relationships that are stressed. It's a challenge, and I love a good challenge - and I'm tired of fluffy anime chicks (note: Mai...does not apply in the 'fluffy' category.)

But get this. Someone cut out all the 'yaoi' and 'yuri' and 'threesome' pairings from a 'ship list they posted, because they didn't like them. I'm not naming names - I would, but considering, I really don't want a lecture from said person. Flames do no good. General Rants, however, make us feel better.

And yet...they left incest 'shippings in there. Like Shizuka and Jonouchi. Am I the only one who finds this really ironic? Love between two men or two women is such a terrible bore (and wrong, if you ask them...) but incest is all righty-dighty just because it's hetero? Where, oh where did we go wrong? ;_;

-~-

Ah...and a survey for my Yu-Gi-Oh! Love.

1)Do you remember your first reaction to Yu gi oh? Yes.
2)What was it? That's...interesting hair...
3)What was your very first episode? Para and Dox Part Deux
4)Favorite character when you started watching full time? Oh God, please, don't make me whip out the Jonouchi fanart...
5)Favorite Moment up to now? Like you have to ask? Sweaty boypile on Jonouchi's bed.
6)Least Favorite Moment Up till now? When Honda ended up as a monkey. Cheap, anyone?
7)Second Favorite Moment?
Honda: "Why do I have the sudden urge to yell "BINGO"?"
Ryuuji: "Go ahead and say it. I'll laugh."

And then again...Evil Marik's duel with Yami Bakura/Marik (Because the dub version is actually funny as hell toward the end.)
8)Second Worst Moment up till now? Anything with Espa Roba in it
9)Least favorite character up to now? Noa Kaiba
10)Character that's grown on you the most? Hiroto Honda. From being the beanball to my hottie. *smirk*
11)Secondary favorite? Ryuuji Otogi
12)Present favorite duelist? Katsuya Jonouchi
13)Favorite minor character? Mako Tsunami (Since I don't know his sub name, sadly.)
14)Best Dueling Moment? Appearance of the Flame Knight.
15)Favorite Episode up till now? Otogi and Honda breakin' down the wall in the NoA arc
16)Second favorite? Any non-gaming blimp scenes...awww...they're all so cute and domestic together!
17)Episode you never wanna see again? The first one. And anything with Malik-face-twisting in it.
18)If you had to pick one episode to watch over and over,which would it be? Sweaty boypiles? *snicker* No. Eppy where Jonouchi drives the truck and nearly kills Ryuuji. Somebody has to throw him in a rollover accident before he breaks out of his eternal cool? *snirk*
19)Favorite Card that's not a real card? You mean...they made stuff up? I don't know any. So I'll use the one I created in my baaad Mary-Sue days - The Flame Unicorn. Yes. Jonouchi fetish. I'm SO sorry...
20)Favorite card that you own? Precious Metal Valkyrie, and the Thunder Dragon
21)Is there anything you'd change if you were able to (about the anime?) Give people less cliched lines, cut the 'friendship' crap and give Anzu a real character, and of course, throw yaoi into the mix and give Shizuka a REAL challenge - how to catch the attention of two boys who're nuts for one another's butts.
22)Current Opinion of the anime? Meh. I like the fanfiction better. ~_~

Title: Captivity

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! (BakuraxHonda)

Author: bardicsidhe

Rating: PG-13 for adult material

Warning: Slash. Mildly unhappy fiction

Summary: Alone in his college library for a few hours, Ryou Bakura considers where his relationship has taken him. This is my answer to seeing someone refer to Bakura and Honda as ‘the perfect couple, because Honda can protect Ryou.’ The boys are probably into their third year of college by now – yes, I play with mature themes because I think ‘deep’ emotional issues are a little out of character for our dear fourteen to sixteen-year-old boys. Don’t you?

 

Cross-posted to www.fanfiction.net under the alias "Scylla the Healer"

 

-~-

 

( Captivity )
</i>

After wandering among the bookshelves here and the old leatherbound editions of The Saturday Evening Post and smelling the old bindery glue in the shadows and letting myself calm down, I found the presence of mind to write. No...thankfully I didn't touch "Blues." I would have ultimately gotten myself in trouble with my current state. Instead, I wrote in response to the disagreement with Honda and Bakura as a 'perfect couple' that cairnsy wrote about. Is anybody a 'perfect couple'? I think not. I focused more on the smothering aspect of Honda being the strong presence that he is, more than any kind of 'protective' instinct, but I think I got the point across. I also feel a bit better. I spellchecked it and reread it a few times, and hopefully tonight I can post it here. It's called "Captivity," and I was inspired to write it because of some of the Bakura-feelings were coming through me. I hope I kept them canon - Bakura doesn't give me much to work with in the series, personality wise.

You know, it might not be a bad idea to answer big comment questions on my journal. Just for the hell of it. (Shyesh. I will admit that in the deepest, darkest, blackest, most despicable part of my soul, I am an incurable publicity hound.)

What is a mesa? Heehee...glad you asked. A mesa is basically nothing more than a flat-topped hill. I can't go into the geological reasons for mesas (I'm guessing it's water-weathering followed by wind hitting sandstone layers for hundreds of thousands of years, though) because I don't know for sure. Mesas are specifically found in the southwestern part of America, though they can be found in other countries. Usually arid climates, especially where there's a lot of soft layers of rock - like sandstone.

These are what mesas look like (None of these are the Floating Mesa, however. That was decidedly lower.) -

http://www2.okstorms.com:8080/images/mesa.jpg

http://www.thecommononline.com/images/Tour%20pix/Mesa%20in%20UT%20080500.jpg

http://strike.colorado.edu/album0/mesa+clouds.jpeg

Mesas aren't always low, however. They can be pretty damn big, and narrow, too. Most of your conventional western art (Try Frederic Remington) features mesas in the background. And in places like the Painted Desert, they can be in gorgeous, gorgeous bright layers of color.

Yes, believe it or not, in Amarillo, Texas, there are ten Cadillacs buried fins-up in concrete. And yes, there is a mesa with a white fence around it. And there are a hundred and one other unusual things in Amarillo. It's as odd and yet subtle as Tristan himself, which is why for some reason I think it's his perfect town. Normal as anything, but with unusual quirks that you really have to look for.

But I digress.

The ten Cadillacs are known as "The Cadillac Ranch." was designed by Stanley Marsh III...something about representing the "Golden Age,"...oh well...you can read about it here.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXAMAcadillac.html

If you want to read about "The Floating Mesa," you'll have to look a little harder. It's not as big a deal as "The Cadillac Ranch," but it's there. For a description rather than pictures, look here.

It really is a cool concept. Even if it is a bit silly. Oh! And the Quarter Horse Museum and Heritage Center exists, too! Sorry, I'm a bit stuck on Tristan riding a big meaty Quarter Horse...so of course he rode a few while he was there. Plus, it made for a good line from Dev. ^_~ I...am shameless.

There are plenty of other interesting sites in Amarillo, and some of them may come up later.

Besides the next chapter in "Blues," I also uploaded two smaller fictions today. I have been far too busy with relationships. Character is important too. These little studies are helping me - all of the character studies I read are helping me! I just can't understand why I seem to keep hurting poor Dev. Is it some kind of internal jealousy? Because he's with Tristan and I'm not? *snicker*

I've been writing almost constantly for the past few months, because of an intensive creative writing college course. As a result, most of my work was done for them, and not fanfiction. Which isn't a terrible crime. Except for the fact that I have a lot of unfinished business to take care of. Perhaps I'm unusual in this...but leaving a story unfinished indefinitely wears on my mind. A feeling of guilt, I suppose. It may stem from the fact that I tend to leave so many things unfinished.

"Blues" and "Oblivious" have been patiently enduring their long period of abandonment. In the first - I'm not sure, but I think my writing style may differ from many other writers in the field in the fact that I rarely ever start a story with a particular end in mind. What comes up first is a novel idea to start with - a song that strikes a feeling, a place, a 'what if?' scenario. A new take on a character's personality can spark it, or a clever line. Reading other authors' work can put me in the mood to sit down and hammer something out quickly. Unfortunately, 'quickly' becomes 'weekly' in a flash, and then it's thirty pages and still just coming down off the action. Or worse...just getting into the conflict. I admire the people who can write one-shots. Most of my one-shot material is pornographic. *snicker* Call it a pressure release. Tristan and Dev (Or Hiroto and Ryuuji, if you will, ^_~) get off of a long day of complicated filming and decided to just have at it in the dressing room to blow off some steam.

I think, however, that something's broken loose this week. *cue happy oompa-loompa dance!* I can actually foresee a real, honest-to-goodness ending for "Blues," and I can see some of the high points in between. Chapters one through six are up, here...

http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1584464

And while I dallied over the rating a bit, I guess it's all right. It's not terribly explicit. I'm going to go check rating listings just to be sure, since Rayemars handled a story with a sex-scene similar to mine in the amount of content, and she R-rated hers. Of course, there's a bit more sexual content just through the commentary...but then again, I use 'fuck' several times. *chuckles* Right then. Let's stop obsessing over the rating, shall we?

"Oblivious" is going to require some more effort. Gyah. I saddled myself with a real winner there. Which means that I probably won't be able to really get into the meat of that story until summer, when computer time isn't at such a premium.

Now, back to editing my project-story for creative writing! *hauls out her dominatrix-style whip* Onward, my muses!

I'm just a figment of your imagination. I'm not supposed to be here. But what the hell.

Due to my level of computer usage (obsession)over the past three years, I started to develop the first stages of carpal tunnel syndrome. Now, since I'm changing my activity level and doing some more outside exercises besides typing, I am improving. Unfortunately...the hiatus seemed to have an adverse effect on my writing.

I am one of those rare people who can't seem to function mentally without a keyboard in front of them. In other words, I have a tough time writing stories out instead of typing them. Suddenly my margins fill with horses and elves and checkerboards and rarely anything ever gets accomplished - maybe some shorthand notes.

So that smut is literally the first thing I've written for myself in a long time. Any of my usage was just to finish assignments, or brief entertainment at school - i.e. journal posting and board roleplay. My inspiration bunnies must have picked up and left during that time. I'm happy to say that I think I'm slowly re-capturing them.

Blues has two to three more pages on top of the two to three new pages I didn't release and had finished at my last update. I'm just finishing up and making sure I have plenty ahead ready to go before I upload that, so it won't take so damn long between updates.

Oblivious has quite a bit more done - but I wrote ahead and didn't write the bridging scene between what I have now and what I want to post...so I need to finish that.

Thankfully, those are my biggest two fictions to date...unless I've missed something. Oh yes. Hallelujah in Blue, which desperately needs to be finished. I think I wrote the greater part of that while I was a sophomore in college...and I'm due to graduate next spring.

As an alert - there's a new virus out that plays havoc with your homepage setup and douses your computer screen with popups. I suffered through it twice tonight, but I think it's finally finished with me. I think. It's not an attachment download, either. I'm not sure what it is. Something like one of those viruses that attack cable-connections and shuts a computer down in 30 seconds. 'Floating'? Is there a word for this type that I don't know? Probably. I need a firewall, apparently, even though this laptop is connected through a network that already has a firewall.

Has anyone ever had an 'inspiration-fic' experience? I have. I have two fictions that I read whenever I'm having trouble working out a character motivation. For some reason...they help. One of them was written by a very close friend, skitz_phenom, and I'm always utterly flabbergasted at her grip on human emotion - it's hard to write yaoi interaction sometimes because I'm not male and I don't want either character to come off sounding female...but somehow...she captures it.

The other is written by a fanfiction.net user named falsechaos. If you've never read it, it is a Honda/Jonouchi high school fiction called "Contradictions." I have the pages saved on my browser, so I can go back and look at them whenever I want. Jou in that story is so...very real. And Honda's the hero that I always knew he was. I don't write him with the same courage and heart that I should. But it's much more fun to write flawed characters, and while Honda from the manga makes an excellent backup character, his only flaw is his obsession with girls and his filthy mind - neither of which Yugi seems to have any impact on. Then again, it's early yet for me - I don't have any opportunity to read the manga other than when it's released in book form for me to pick up (on Volume 4 now), and the cartoon is on so sporadically that it's almost not worth watching. It's frustrating.

I think I will just do what I do for Gundam Wing.

I'll watch it through the fanfiction.

I've only seen the last half of Endless Waltz, never saw an episode of the cartoon, and own three manga - Endless Waltz, Episode Zero, and Battlefield of Pacifists. Everything I know about the boys, I know from fanfiction. So please don't lie to me. ^_~ No...wait. Lies, sweet yaoi sites, tell me lies.

Sometimes, though, loving the concept and only knowing what they hand you is like only being allowed to read half a book, and then ordered to write the sequel. Without all the information, it's really hard to write good fiction. Hence my departure from the original storyline, most of the time. I am infernally tired of trying to use what I know from what I've watched and purchased to create canon stories...because that's like dog-paddling in the swimming pool while everyone else does the crawl. AU is for everyone like me - we know the base characters inside out (or think we do. ^_~), but what we don't have is the plot.

I just had the pleasure of getting another review from a fiction I started and never finished - I forget about the poor things and then somebody leaves me a Christmas present in my inbox and it gets me going again.

I am, unfortunately, having problems deciding how to end "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues," or "Blues," as I've come to affectionately shorten it (and shorten it out of sheer laziness.) Poor Tristan and Dev have been staring at one another over the bathtub wall for months now - and I promised I wouldn't take so long to update. I do have the next installment finished. I just need to go back and look at it.

Finding the ending to a story has got to be one of the hardest things an author can face. I think that my fear of leaving behind something I've been so immersed in for weeks is one of the reasons that I have problems. Another one is - I have ideas for plots, and yet I don't generally have ideas for full plots. A scene here, a twist there, a general overview, and the broad resolution - i.e. the main point of the story's ending.

But it is so hard to get there.

It is maddening!

Luck appears to be on my side. I have a beautiful creative writing professor. I have officially given up gushing over his beautiful mind on the journal I share with most of my friends, for the simple fact that I am rarely taken seriously, and more often jeered as 'silly.' I can certainly understand and sympathize; after all, nobody within my circle of companions has had the pleasure of listening to this man. And nobody within this circle has had the pleasure of reading a book that I adore on the matter. It...and he...have proven to be my saviors on the matter of writing. Only time will tell, but I think I have a chance.

His biggest breakthrough instruction was to stop trying to write linearly. The story when it is finished, shall progress from beginning to end in an orderly fashion. I, as the all-powerful author, am not obligated to write it in any such manner. I am free to skip scenes until the inspiration comes. It means that I will have to upload fictions as a whole on Fanfiction, to my dismay, as I do so enjoy creating a 'serial' for people to read, but I am quite sure I frustrate them more often than I satisfy as I take months and months to update a fiction with a single chapter. Perhaps I can still finish a story...and update it on a regular basis, rather than loading it at once in its entirety...?

It is always a thought. I am and will likely always be a performer of sorts - I joy in the commentary that I receive from others - and I make no distinction between criticism and praise. All that I ask is that people exhibit a fair amount of common sense and not read a fiction labeled with every appropriate warning, only to leave a disgusted comment. Everyone's synapse fires in a different way, and as such, if it is not libelous and is rated appropriately, they could use their time better elsewhere to leave constructive commentary on fiction that they can bear to read. I do not take 'flames' seriously. Someone who leaves a plaintive reply of 'why do you always write yaoi?' is obviously not worth my time. I do not always write yaoi, and my fanfiction is part of a large ring of fellow artists. If only they would listen...but the individuals who leave such comments generally seem incapable of listening, at any rate.

On to the fiction. I have been pondering leaving small pieces of my fiction on groups that I know of here - but I have also been cautioned that I'm overreaching myself. I suppose I shall have to remain an observer until the time comes that I have plenty of spare hours to indulge myself. As of now, I am beset by an assignment to complete twenty-five double spaced pages of rough short story manuscript...before the end of next week. I have progressed quite a bit, and perhaps more later on that topic. For now, I have a rather long drive home ahead of me.