'What the bloody hell,' is pretty much my entire reaction to writing this.

Title: The Territory is Not the Map
Series: FFVII
Rating: Sex. And office politics.
Warnings: Spoilers. No desks were harmed in the making of this fic.
Notes: Post-FF7, pre-AC. Rufus/Reeve. Reeve is busy looking towards the future, but Rufus still sees the past.

"The map is not the territory." -- Alfred Korzybski

( story here )

Yes, I know: second person POV is probably one of the most hated POVs out there (and often for good reason.) The fic refused to bend to first or third. I'm both embarrassed and sorry.

If you said this fic exists only to be a disguised form of gunwank... you'd probably be right.

Title: Breaking Clay
Series: FFVII
Rating: Mild language. Shotguns.
Warnings: For second person POV.
Notes: 6.9k. ShinRa father-son bonding at its finest. Pregame. POV Rufus.

( story here )

Also worth posting, even though it has nothing to do with writing:

The story goes like this: the Boston Police tweet about incidents on the streets of Boston; one of their tweets was the following:

"INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody."

A user named @willcady asked the following: "@Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?"

...to which @Boston_Police replied: "@willcady Yes, absolutely"

Read the reddit comments too, they're full of win.

Unsurprisingly, Boston Police Zombie Tweet already has a shirt via Cafepress.

...oh god, what year is it?

Unsurprisingly enough: I am still awol, and quite likely will continue to be as long as the economy is having a hairball on itself. It's just a matter of available time; I don't have any. I like paying the bills, and right now, I'm not amazing enough to do that with my writing. (Dammit.) Everyone who hates my work, breathe a sigh of relief -- there won't be much updating for a while. Everyone who can tolerate my stuff, I apologize in advance, because the next draft I have on my plate is a first-person second-person pre-FF7 piece that's mostly just a form of gunwank. I'm... really sorry.

I'm flush with all kinds of observations when it comes to an unholy combination of two traditionally opposing forces: government and art. However, legally I can't share half of them, and the other half, I shouldn't. I really like being able to pay the bills.

Suffice to say, if you happen to be a graphic designer looking at your prospects in the field, here are a couple of observations that might be useful if you're willing to edge into the public sector. Part of what I have always dreaded in being a designer is the premise that you have only three options: freelance, become part of a stable, or be lucky enough to net the role of a company's single pet designer. With the first two, you're always looking for those lucky opportunities that keep you from begging for clients and living contract to contract. And -- unfortunately -- designers are usually thought of as luxury items, much like marketing and communications; if Joe Random can send out an email with animated dancing penguins on it promoting the next big product release, then why do they need you, right? Right.

The public sector is starting to wise up to the usefulness of designers though, largely because of the role we can play in terms of communication. So if you're willing to look towards the public side, here are some bits from my side of the world (your experience may vary):

( being a designer for The Man )

Other various things that have happened lately:
- My sister almost died
- and was seriously ill for the last few months. She's better now. Mostly.
- I had to troubleshoot two computers that have kept my evenings busy the last few weeks as I relentlessly go through bluescreen error after bluescreen error. Joy!
- I'm engaged in various interdepartmental political forays; so far, I seem to be holding my own, though I've lost ground recently on a few topics.
- I have about 100k+ words in a semi-fanfic that I'm waffling on making original or not. For the last year, it's mostly been original work whenever I've been able to write; as you can see, that was wonderfully useless of me.
- I finally worked out a method of getting my drafts on track. Because I bounce from computer to computer and .doc to .doc, and can't write at work anymore, I had a lot of stray notes that went missing and a lot of versioning issues. Right now, I use Wikispaces.com. I did drop the $25 for a year's worth of private entries, and I really find it to be invaluable -- not the least because, like other wikis, it retains a changelog for you with reversions as needed. It also lets you do a mass-export of your wiki, which zips up everything into individual HTML files and saves them in a nice, neat folder. I can't protest. I find it useful; your mileage may vary.

And back I go to trying to pack in everything I can on my day off. Government really doesn't give you that many holidays, despite popular opinion; what I wouldn't give for a few more days of rest. Hope everyone's doing well! I miss folks, but work is where you can get it.

And that's a wrap.

There's already commentary about how unsatisfying and short the epilogue feels in comparison to the rest. I'm sure that there are some people who figure I just gave up on the story, and that's why the last piece is so abrupt; unfortunately, this was how it was going to wrap up all along (the real meat was in Ch. 16.) I'm okay with that.

Sorry if you've been reading and really aren't happy with the epilogue though. (Did I not say in my last post that I expected great disappointment? And least I got that part right.)

I wrote this one for motorbike a little while ago, and realized I should archive it here as well. It's in the But the Wind is Free AU-verse, so it may be to your taste, may not. It's set post-Wind, and just after the pivotal betrayal -- done Wind reversal, of course.

Also, there may be some Magpies. I make no promises. After this is just the epilogue. I sense great disappointment.

Title: What Choices Are Given
Series: FFXII
Rating: Mild language?
Warnings: Spoilers for the game. AU.
Notes: But the Wind is Free 'verse. Post-Wind. For motorbike.

( fic here )

Title: Rules of Water
Series: Pirates of the Caribbean
Rating: For pirates?
Warnings: Spoilers for Barbossa, first two movies.
Notes: Set between Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest. For lyosha.

( fic here )

Wow. Yes. Still not back yet, but continuing to attempt different methods of time management in order to have a life again. Still love the job. It just takes up my life. Working government isn't bad -- it just really does erase the social time of LJ when you can't read and comment over the course of a day, and you're on the road for 2-4 hours of the rest. Sorry guys.

Speaking of which: still not in the loop of reading and responding to things. Deja, a thousand apologies for not replying to your mails. Still alive. (Still not king.) Small steps to staying afloat.

Magpies in all its prolonged suffering is almost complete, with two sections in the last chapter to be done. I also finished a quick short for S to keep myself in the habit of writing, and also the PotC short I promised lyosha so long ago. So, here we go.

Title: Gravity
Series: FF6
Rating: General
Warnings: Spoilers, post-game
Notes: A Setzer short. For S, whose interpretation made me want to write it.
( fic here )

Wow. What month is it again?

Contrary to popular belief, I have not:
1. Stopped writing.
2. Died.
3. Been reassimilated into the Borg Collective.

I have, however,
1. Been eaten alive by my job
2. which forbids access to LJ and other fannish/social sites
3. and demands every drop of creativity I can muster
4. meaning that I've been getting home, staring blankly at things, and then preparing for the next day of work.

I've almost entirely missed the last few months on LJ; still will continue to do that too, so if anyone needs me, hit me with an email at rabbitprint at gmail dot com. Obviously I'm not answering comments or mail, as many people have discovered (Sorry, kytha, dejablue7, ksol1460, I'm getting the letters and appreciate them like you wouldn't believe, just the time is too swamped for a proper answer. Also, ksol1460, if you need anything, just flood my mailbox and yell at me until I wake up. Promise me you will.)

Love my job though. It's eaten me completely alive, but I enjoy it.

( Things I've been working on in the meantime: )

I'm still working. Just very, very, very slowly. And not at all tuned in here. Sorry, guys. If you need to alert me of something, mail me, and I promise I read them every couple of weeks, it's not just disappearing into a bleak black void.

Hey, it’s yet another, ‘wow, I haven’t written much' post. I know that people get sick of reading too long a string of ‘tee hee, RL is such a bitch’ but despite that, I figured I’d update.

( quite probably only of interest to those poor sods who are also working a career in graphics )

On the writing front, I've been scribbling as much as I can in my spare time. This year has really been a case of 'career vs. hobby,' and the former won out. I appreciate people's patience; things should start settling down now back into a regular routine. Also: I think I'm into the lower tier of upper management now! How creepy is that.

Finishing this one off because it hung around for so long while nearly complete.

Title: Drawing Straight Lines
Series: Loveless
Rating: As normal as Loveless gets.
Warnings: For art geekery.
Notes: Pre-manga. Spoilers. Soubi, Seimei. If art is a reflection of life, then life might be a reflection of rules.

( story here )

Also this.

So this was actually being written back when LJ had its first cough-up of censorship. Then, just when I had picked it back up again, the second round struck. Hence, this fic is archived on IJ.

I have no real good defense for this one, considering that the canon of this series includes incest and girls getting married/having children at twelve (in one instance, by a girl's own father) and so on, but some people might be offended.

Title: A Man Owes Three
Series: Song of Ice & Fire
Rating: Implications
Warnings: May be age squick.
Notes: Spoilers. Set during Feast for Crows, pre-Cat of the Canals. Arya, Jaqen (and possibly wolves.) Whether in the House of Black and White or out in the woods, some parts of life continue on.

[IJ link]

Oh, right! Um.

Going to catch up on a few comments here and there (sorry for any delays!), but listing this before I forget. Just a short Kabuto thing that's been hanging around that I finally got done, nothing groundbreaking but I wanted to poke around a bit at his revelations to Naruto and how they reflect back on all of his inconsistent behavior. Finally got it done despite promising.... months ago, sorry R.

Magpies took a pause due to Nano and I apologize for that, if anyone's still reading, though the last chapter is about 4k down.

Title: Simplification
Series: Naruto
Rating: General
Warnings: For rambling.
Notes: Spoilers. Set before and during the three year break. A Kabuto short. The nature of a tool is not to question, but Kabuto's been a lot of different things anyway. For R.

( story here )

Well, this isn't the thirtieth of October (but I post early because the 30th may be chaotic for me), and it breaks all the suggestions on preferred style, but. I think everyone's used to that from me by now.

So, for mithrigil, a little early.

Title: If Words Were True
Series: Vagrant Story
Rating: General
Warnings: For misuse of narrative.
Notes: Spoilers. Post-game. Sometimes when you call for the Dark, it comes. For Mithrigil.

( story here )

All right: backstory for this was that I happened to see a piece of art by maho_kiwi which portrayed both Demyx and Luxord doing a clothes swap; and EDIT: Kiwi found the link! Also, I've always wanted to write a KH story which involved the play on words of 'Suicide King/King of Hearts,' and here you go. Started many months ago, finally finished now. A bit roundabout. C'est la vie.

Title: Suicide King
Series: KH2
Rating: For dinosaurs.
Warnings: None.
Notes: KH2, pregame. A Luxord and Demyx short. A gambler and a musician may seem out of place for an Organization without hearts, or they may have had their own reasons for survival.

( story here )

Cleaned up and expanded one of the drabbles: Slow the World, So I Can Run, which is Riku, Roxas, and some moping.

Finished off Saix's far-too-longwinded narration, thus:

Title: An Unreasonable Desire to Live
Series: Kingdom Hearts 2
Rating: For dry, repetitive narration.
Warnings: Spoilers.
Notes: Sequel to 'Spare the Light.' KH, Vagrant Story. Freed from the prisons of Lea Monde, Saix must find his own way in a world stranger than he ever imagined, lacking the very thing that once defined him.

( story here )

In the last cleanup of Unreasonable, I suddenly picked up this one and finished off its last few sections. It's a short. But I like it. You can probably blame lindenleaves for my return to poking at Utena fics -- not that there were too many left unfinished on my list.

Title: Long Distance
Series: Utena (anime)
Rating: Rated for talk of mundane affairs.
Warnings: Spoilers.
Notes: Post-anime, an Anthy and Akio short. Anthy's call statements always have Akio's number on them.

( story here )

From mithrigil, and because I haven't done this one recently. If ever.
( Read more... )

This meme probably reveals more about my dating habits than it does about my fandom tastes.

Oh yeah -- and Chapter 15.

Just one chapter and the short epilogue to go. But the meat of everything is there in 15; 16 is simply the wrap and setup.

I wasn't going to post it until I had Ch.16 also complete, but at the rate of RL these days, it's been crazy. There's a very good reason I still haven't been producing any kind of writing, and the summary mostly involves an incredibly long, drawn-out pair of corporate soap operas; I've dealt with more lawyers, more client backstabbing, more legal definitions, more coworker mishaps and more management negotiations than I've wanted to ever. Some business issues are starting to become resolved, which is what gave me the breathing room to wrap Ch.15. Things are still very much up in the air. Whichever result they turn out to be, I'd like to get some time to write, asap -- it'd be nice.

Sorry... and I really appreciate the patience. This was not how I'd hoped to spend this summer. I'm not trying to, uh, whine for sympathy here, just acknowledge my writing lapse, which is for a good reason.

Drabbles are wrapped up; mad_rex noted that LJ's comment notifications have been a little wonky, so I figured I'd say something here, since eh, why repost them. Except to IJ. Be right back.

On the subject of the IJ/LJ/GJ thing: I technically have an IJ, though I don't know how much I'll be posting vs. website archiving there. That being said, many host providers have anti-'porn' clauses; until definitions get much stronger, I should be fine though. Umm.... let me know if I should add you, and I will try my hardest to keep tabs there and here as well.

What a week, what a week.

I used to resent CSS. Now I hate not using it, even partially.