timepiececlock

"You're the best person for the job in the village, and that's that!"
( Chapter 367 )

I can't for the life of me remember who ( spoiler ) was. Was he an ancestor or something? Or something from one of the Itachi flashbacks?

If I've already read a considerable portion of the manga, is it worth it to start watching the new anime? If so, when should I pick it up again to skip all the boring re-introductions?



And, on a random note, things I wish I got to say more often in conversation:

Everyone loves a happy medium.
You anti-semantic bastard.
But now what do I do about the bubbles?

Wow. My 2004 Naruto parody "Most Dramatic Gut-Wrenchingly Tragic Rape Fic Ever to Grace FF.Net" is on the 'rape fic' page at Fan History Wiki. Weird, the places where fandom stuff shows up that you never find out about later.

Just when I think people have forgotten that fic I get a random review from someone who either hated or loved it. The ratio so far has been about 70/30 in the positive. Of the people who didn't like it, a lot of them complained that I put it in the Tragedy/Drama category instead of Humor, and others seemed actually annoyed that it's rated M but only actually deserves a PG. I guess people really expected to read a rape fic, though how anyone could take the title seriously I've no idea.

Some examples:

* I'm going two ways aboout this. I think it's something you have to hate or love (as evidenced by the reviews) and yet I find myself in a giggly, dissapointed 'WTF?' mood. Either way, I think I kinda like it!

* Jesus Crist! How old are you? That wasn't even close to a rape either. And you'd actually think Itachi would be much smarter than that. I give this a -5 out of 5 stars for wasting my 5 minutes reading this. Ugh!
-From a skilled reader/reviewer- Prio

* Only three words:
My sides hurt.
XD

*...wasted my life on that

* I feel violated as a reader.
Absolutely (if delightfully) disgusting.

* Holy hell. Are you serious? Are you ** serious? That was hilarious. And I enjoyed it. Kudos to you and your crazed up mind.

* what a trojan horse...[sigh]

* Sorry to tell you but your Most Dramatic Gut-Wrenchingly Tragic Rape Fic wasn't that gut-wrenching or tragic at all. it was even kind of stupid and made a mockery of Itachi's character. I suggest you read more into the characters and TRY to keep them within their limits. I seriously doubt Itachi would waste his time going to her house and trying to rape her and then from his own stupidity let her get away and stab him in the eye with a Kunai. it wont happen. Maybe try thinking if you were in their situation and try to imagine how they would handle it. It also wouldn't hurt to get a little more descriptive about what is happening. I know I am not that great of a writer myself, and I'm not trying to insult you. It is a nice plot, a little over-used but a nice plot. It also might help if you dont try to make things out to be different then they are.
Ja Ne,
Sukoshi No Koinu

I went back into the doc for it and fixed the title to be "...Fic Ever To Grace The Pit Of Voles", since now FF.net erases any indication of the side, like "ffnet" or "ff.net" or "fanfiction.net" and it left my title hanging after "Grace". I also fixed two grammar errors when I replaced the text.

I thought about rewriting it, because it's pretty bad even for a parody fic and I wouldn't mind "improving" it. But I decided that I should leave it as the original since it's been "complete" for four years now, and that's what people have commented on.

Potential Epic Fics I've Yet To Finish

Our Cartography: [Avatar: The Last Airbender] My post-first season AU epic friendship/UST/adventure fic for Katara and Zuko, that got derailed after the season 2 premier stole one of my climax ideas and sent me into a crushing spiral of envy-angst. As akavertigo said, most writers are jealous, maniacal, and possessive about our ideas. Having them stolen by canon is almost worse than having plaigarized by another fan, cause I've nobody to be properly mad at. I'm still getting over this, and there are very strong chances I'll get back to this fic.

Salience & Synergy: [Avatar: The Last Airbender] My season 1 AU fic, with Iroh teaching Aang to firebend while he sits in Zuko's ship on the way to the Fire Nation capital. I still have hopes of finishing this one, actually. I love the idea of writing something trancendental, something that has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with philosophy and spirituality. Aang and Zuko have such a heavy dynamic, as do Iroh and Zuko.

The Mindwalker Ninja: [Naruto] My epic Ino Yamanaka life-fic, an AU that would span 20 years and see her through relationships with Shikamaru and Sasuke. This one has a lot of outlining done, particularly with regards to Ino's part in the final battle with Orochimaru, and with Sasuke's future. I stopped writing it because Naruto came off haiatus after the age jump, and I began to lose interest in the fandom, and the Ino that came out of more manga began to differ from my idea of Ino, who was half OC anyway given that we knew so little about her. Still, there's a lot of potential for writing more with this.

Mon Autre Vie: [Fruits Basket] My would-be epic Tohru Honda / Sohma family drama fic, which was based on a damn cool premise, if I do say so myself. Again, I began to grow distant from the fandom, particularly when I stopped reading the manga scanlatioons and subsequently had to give up on fanfic for fear of being spoiled. I had a good deal outlined for this fic, though not as much as the two above, and I wish I could write more even though I somehow doubt I'll get back to it.

Dane: [Harry Potter] A result of my Shakespeare crush, a massive epic based on fusing Harry Potter and Hamlet, a post-book 5 AU that would have had the students of Hogwarts unwittingly play out the entire play all the way to its tragic ending. It would have been really fucking cool, if I hadn't lost the massive outline I did for it. A full break down of character roles and plotlines, incredible amounts of detail... all gone. I was pretty upset about it, trust me.

Orpheus Child: [Cowboy Bebop] The closest thing I've done to outlining a complete novel, and it would have been one of the best fics I'd written. A post-series fic about Spike rediscovering his life, about family ties and blood and love and friendship, about the horrors of adulthood and childhood. Somewhere I have an outline for this SOMEWHERE I DO. I just don't know where it is right now. But it was a great outline, plotting the major events of each chapter, the emotional arcs of each character, the themes, allusions, and metaphors of the story, the thrilling climax, and even chapter titles pulled exclusively from poems by e. e. cummings and Shel Silverstein, as part of the mythology/children's story motif. And now it's been so very long since I watched CB... I wouldn't even remember how to write Spike's dialogue, or Jet's or Ed's dialogue.

51 Ways To Draw A Perfect Circle : [Fullmetal Alchemist] My once grand idea to do a drabble for every episode of FMA, each in a different character (50 total). I only got so far as 10, but I selected the main characters for all 51. Next time I sit down to watch an FMA marathon, I might take it up again and finish.


It's kind of depressing that "I lost the outline" the major reason for most of these fics dying, isn't it? And for the rest, it's lost interest. My interest wanders too easily, I'm sad to say, when it comes to fiction writing. Hopefully I'll get over that one day. You'll notice that neither of my two ATLA long drabble series, Night Has Come or Culture Clash, are up here. That's because they're too skimpy in word count to be called epic, and also because I plan on writing more for them, beyond all doubt.

jaina, your post gave me an idea.

I flung that idea out into the verse.

And now, it has CORPOREALIZED.

325
-Ha! Someone just got their head cut off. That doesn't happen often enough in this manga, if you ask me.

326
-What the shit man, that is NOT COOL.

329
-I love teen-Ino's character design.

328
-Well shit. Goddamn#$&*#(^fucking@)($#%^!manga. WHY MUST YOU HURT ME?

329
-So the evil plan is globalization?

330
-On page 11 Naruto looks almost freakishly like the 4th Hokage. Is that even controversial anymore? Or are we all just waiting for them to one day finally confirm what every reader already knows?
-Someone should tell this boy that he can't be a super-fit marathon running ninja if he smokes cigarrettes. Either be an athlete or be an addict; you can't be both. You'd think he'd know that, being so smart. Also, way to corrupt the kids, author. You're a writer of such stellar integrity, glorifying high-priced poison in the eyes of the young readerbase. I'd offer to smoke one in your name, except I actually value my lungs and other internal organs.

331
-"I don't tolerate selfishness." Goddam RIGHT. If there's anything in the manga that bugs me, it's the way rashness is celebrated as a good thing.

332
-There's a really nice height-comparison chart for post-time-jump Naruto included in this chapter. Sadly, even at fifteen year old he's only 5' 5". Come on! At fifteen my brother was pushing 5' 10". If Naruto is going to grow up to be as tall as the other adult male characters in the series, well, let's just say his growth spurt is arriving pretty late.

333
-Mmmm...Kakashi. Yup.

So, I got an account at aff.net, and I'm using it to post fic about my latest guilty pleasure pairing. I've also gotten myself in a writing rut again, which I am attempting to resolve through searching out music to write to. This is hampered by my lack of an iPod, because now I can't blast the soundtrack in my ears every other minute that I'm awake to keep it on my mind. Meriadoc, WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DROWN LIKE THAT IN THE AIR IN THE NIGHT? (well, it wasn't night, but it was late late afteroon.)



The soundtrack for Lucid so far:

Crushing Velvet – “XXX” [the fic's theme song]
Interpol – “Evil”
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Maps”
Snow Patrol – “How To Be Dead”
Damien Rice – “Volcano”
Cracker – “Low”
Courtney Love – “But Julian, I’m A Little Older Than You” [its other theme song]
Garbage – “Bad Boyfriend”
Franz Ferdinand – “40 ft.”
Jennifer Paige – “Crush”
Melissa Ferrick – “Drive” [thanks, loves_bitch, this is pretty hot. And dirty.]
Outkast – “Idlewild Blue (Don’tchu Worry)”
Elliot Smith – “Between the Bars” [for when the eventual angst hits]
Trespassers William – “Lie In the Sound” [don't ask]
KT Tunstall – “False Alarm”
Elastica – “Stutter” [this one is still on probation, and might be removed]
The White Stripes – “Fell In Love With A Girl”
The Crystals - "And Then He Kissed Me"


When I have the final list, I'll post a zip file if anyone's interested.



random off-topic edit: Someone I don't know just sent me a semi-aggressive and way-overreactive page-long comment reply to two pretty inoffensive lines in my comment to someone else, and used an Uzumaki Naruto icon with a caption that says "You! Shut the fuck up." Bwuh...bwuh... WHY? Why is Naruto in your icon telling me to shut the fuck up? Naruto is an earnest sweetiepie, he doesn't go around like that telling strangers to shut the fuck up unless they do something drastic like try to kill his loved ones or steal his pocket money to buy porn. It's just... wrong. Not funny wrong. Just wrong.

I am not practiced at the art of subtle icon insulting. I replied and exited the conversation using my Kakashi calm face icon. I am confident Kakashi's face will calm anyone down while I back away slowly and then run madly from someone whose peckish for an online fight about celebrities at 3 in the morning.

Characters I'd Like To See Get Eaten By A Bear, Or Just Otherwise Disappear

Derek Shepherd [Grey's Anatomy]
Sasuke Uchiha [Naruto]
Lee "Apollo" Adama [Battlestar Galactica]
Nathon Petrelli [Heroes]
Kikyo [Inu Yasha]
Kisa Sohma [Fruits Basket]
Angel [Angel: the Series] ...(but puppet!Angel can stay.)
Anotsu [Blade of the Immortal]
Folken de Fanelia [The Vision of Escaflowne]
Treize Khushrenada [Gundam Wing]
the entire cast [The Phantom of the Opera, the movie]

Finally watched "Appa's Lost Days" last night. If I didn't already love this little show to its bloody bits, I would love it after this. An entire episode devoted to a non-speaking, flying, white buffalo and how he escapes the terrible fate of ------spoiler-----, -------spoiler-------, ---spoiler---, and ------spoiler------. I just love this show.

This also strikes me as a great episode to transcribe and attempt to novelize in fanfiction form. I was trying to pick an episode to attempt this, but I find the mix of slapstick kiddie humor with the dramatic storyline distracting; it works visually but would be hard to capture in writing. Especially since a lot of the humor of Avatar relies on the visual "cute" factor, particularly with Aang. This episode, however, has almost no humor (it was quite dark by A:TLAB standards), and is perfect for long descriptions. Now that I've started Ivanhoe (and no I still have not finished The Amber Spyglass, but I will), I'm getting an overhwleming desire to break away from my standard dialogue-heavy style of fanfic and write in long, descriptivy* paragraphs. It'd be a pleasant style change.

We'll see what happens, though I doubt I'll get much writing done this week considering I have to go to jury duty all day tomorrow. Should get lots of time to read, at least. And after jury duty I have other stuff occupying me all week.

To finish my entry... a fic rec!

READ THIS NARUTO FIC. It's dark, sexy, actiony, tense, and of all things Kakashi/Sakura pairing. Yeah, I know. But trust me on this one. And skip the summary, because it really doesn't do the fic justice.



*if you were wondering, no that is not a word.