Variations on the same theme

Title Narcissus Unbound
Fandoms: QaF, QaF US
Rating: R
Summary/Notes: It's probably been written a million times, but Stuart Allan Jones meets Brian Kinney. I blame this on Vae.

( It's a look they exchange. Appraisal, acknowledgement, and it turns into instant dislike. )

So I finally saw "No Night Is Too Long," wherein Lee Williams and Marc Warren have hot naked happy sweaty man sex. It's not anything earth shattering, but it's nice enough to watch if you like the actors. I think I'd have been rather bored were it not for my deep Marc Warren love. I've also recently watched him in the latest installment of Messiah; I hadn't seen any previous episodes, but now this I truly enjoyed.

But mostly! Ashes To Ashes, dudes. I can see how people wouldn't like Alex Drake, but I'm sorry, I do. Yes, she's very hysterical, but she thinks she's hallucinating! I can't dislike Keeley Hawes anyway, apparently. I know I should be heavily disliking her and her dynamics with Gene, but apparently I can't. I don't, anyway. I'm sold on them. When he came and just filled her glass at the counter and left her to go back to his table? I dug that. A lot. I also find it very interesting to see the different kind of sexism in the 80s, from the 70s. And Chris has balls! Dude. The overly cheesy hero shots around Gene I'm not sure how I feel about just yet. We'll see as the show goes on. I can't wait! Plus, Stephen Campbell Moore.

Supernatural I've really enjoyed for the past two episodes, and Lost is not actually boring me the way it used to. The L-Word is actually fun, too!

Now, just because I have a presentation on Aristotle's Poetics for Thursday, help me procrastinate creatively! Meme snagged from the_grynne!

Five Things ______ Doesn't Know About _______

Name two characters, preferably from the same fandom (or pick an easy crossover to write), and I will write a list or a ficlet or an advert.

Fic: Eight of Nine Lives
Fandom: Lucifer Box
Summary: Someone kindly told me you'd wasted eight of nine lives. Morrissey, You're gonna need someone on your side.
Notes: The huge sort of spoilers for the second novel, The Devil In Amber. Not sure there's much point to this fic besides me writing it out at last, but it's been stuck somewhere in my chest since I read the novel.


( Sometimes they only smoked a cigarette in silence, shoulder to shoulder. )

So the plan, my plan, was for me to go to bed early enough tonight, so that I might not be exhausted tomorrow. Tomorrow is the family lunch where I will have to 1) eat endives, which I hate, but this is really rather anecdotic, 2) and this is the important part, steel myself in case the conversation turns to politics. My mother's family, mum excepted, is quite homophobic, and for you French peeps to whom it means something, they all support Sarko, oh yay - for you non French peeps, it's as bad, in a completely different way, as if we were American and they supported Bush. The point is, I need to steel myself and not start snapping at people angrily seeing as that wouldn't exactly lead to a happy jolly (and other things in -oly) Christmas place.

But the problem is, well, this 'verse, and how for some reason I needed to finish the fic I'd started in translation class on Wednesday tonight.

Mind you, I call it a problem, but it was really a pleasure. My pleasure. Despite the early hour.

I posted it at the fic_orphanage, since anything from that 'verse truly belongs there more than anywhere else (seeing as it doesn't actually belong anywhere else), but just in case anybody else among you has read these books (or just the one, as have I), and also very selfishly so I can archive it under a fanfiction tag, here is a link to it.

I do not deem myself perfect, as perfect happens to be really quite boring, but I have spent most of my life making sure to only cultivate the most endearing of flaws.

Yes, it's had me reacquaint myself with a first person narrator, which I hadn't done in forever, but Lucifer truly wouldn't have it any other way, stubborn, self-centered bugger that he is. And oh how I love him. (He reminds me of the days when I enjoyed Lestat.)

...I've finally posted my first real forray into the wonderful 'verse shadesofbrixton and havenstar set up over at fic_orphanage. the_grynne, it's that fic I had long ago promised you. It's come at last. Hope you like it!

I'm now gonna go and collapse in bed, because I am in dire need of some major sleep.

All right, so I've just finished writing them. I'm not a hundred percent happy with them, but if I don't post them now I never will. And okay, they're bigger than what drabbles should be I guess, but who cares. Let's call them vignettes then.

---

Harry/Remus for stampinground - weirdly, it's the one of those three drabbles vignettes that I like best. Thanks for the (squicky) prompt!


( Wrong, wrong, wrong. )


---

Sark and Vaughn for twixou - this is probably nothing like what you expected, 'Lexia, but hopefully you'll still like it. I might give a try to some very short smut between them, if you want, as I'm all for hot desperation-driven smut and that would work very well in between S2 and S3, or even after Lauren's death, but... this is what came out today. I can't believe I wrote S5 Sydney. Argh.


( There's something to be said for eggs. )



---

Mal and Simon for thewatch - as predicted, not paired together, although I'm pretty sure you could read it that way if you wanted to. Hope you like it!


( Wind's picking up. )

So. greenie_breizh and I just watched Chasing Amy, as the quote right here might have hinted. When we saw the last goodbye scenes, I could not help but once again notice that I was more touched by the bit with Banky than the bit with Alyssa, and it ties up quite well with stuff I've been wondering about lately, due to a couple of discussions that were going on on cgwriting's and khohen1's LJs regarding slash.

I've always felt more at ease writing male characters than female, for some reason. They just come to me much more easily. Quite in the same way, there is something about well-written slash that is so very interesting. Something in a bond between two men, instead of being between two women or a woman and a man, is much more interesting to me. It seems to resonate within me much more. And I just have to wonder why that is. My hypothesis is, that it's because a male-male bond (should it be love or friendship or what-not, this goes beyond slash actually) is something that I cannot by definition experience. Hence being more interested in it.

greenie_breizh remarked that another factor might be how unconventional male-male relationships are - even friendship, says she. It might play a role, but I remain to be convinced. I think the "unknown" factor plays much more in it. But I wonder whether there's anything else in it. Or maybe it is that women are on the whole less well written than men - with some wonderful exceptions of course! Far from me to think that women are not beautifully portrayed on a daily basis... but maybe they're still, on the whole, given less thought than men.

But then where does my difficulty writing them come from? It's not that I can't - it's that I find less pleasure, less interest, less challenge in it. Is this it then? A challenge thing? Or are they on the contrary more difficult to write because they are too close to me and I can't step back enough? I just don't know.

Have you noticed how my thoughts are going in circles and not getting anywhere? People, I need your input here. What are your thoughts? How do *you* view slash? What are *you* more interested in reading, and why do you think that is? Can you suggest any reason why interaction between men is so very interesting to me? Anything is welcome.

Very slightly related: I watched The Doctor Dances. Which was a brilliant episode. So the_swordman, did you mean "Captain Jack" when you were telling me of Doctor Who and the first male bisexual character on British telly (though so far, he hasn't said he is bisexual, it's just the Doctor making assumptions)? (And might I point out the irony of Rose calling him Captain Jack... especially for those of us who have loved firesignwriter's Moonverse series.)

You've read me ranting about the movie, pondering over what to write, and here it comes at last. My first AKT fic. It's all Chaucer (and quite a bit of Edward, too). It was beta-read by and significantly improved thanks to dragonfare. I'd much appreciate any review, guys. I do love Chaucer an awful deal.

( Where He Walks )

Alright, so there goes what I've been working on lately. I won't lie, you'll be rather lost if you haven't seen Cowboy Bebop (or at least the episodes Jupiter Jazz, part one and two). However, if you do read it, please let me know what you think. I'm venturing into new territory (beware, ahead lies NC-17 of the non too vanilla variety) and am consequently rather anxious about the fic. It wasn't planned at all, the characters pretty much took me along for the ride without my having a say in the matter. I love it when that happens, especially when it challenges me so. It's unbetaed and open to changes, so any suggestion will be welcome. (And kudos to pee_wai without whom this fic would never have been!)

Here's a wallpaper I made for it: The tear of a warrior I know, not much of Vicious in it. I'll probably do another one with more of him. Or maybe one about just him and Spike... I'll see.

Update, 07/16/04: just reworked on it a bit, so that it would be more understandable to non CB fans, plus a few minor changes.

( On with the fic. )