Blogathon Begins!

Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time again! From here on in, I'll be posting whatever spews out of my brain, every half hour for the next twenty-four. Fear. Or anticipate.

Also, SPONSOR ME!

A Rundown of Prompts

I got some particularly nifty prompts from nevacaruso, so I may actually be doing more fanfic than I thought. Said prompts are:

1. Five rumors about L that persist at Wammy's.(Death Note)
2. Five things Mello never said to Near.(Death Note. Also harder than it looks, since I'd like to remain in character, with two characters who don't have the communication skills God granted a pineapple.)
3. Five times at Bennington art school when Wendy was glad that Lacey was her roommate. (The Middleman. nevacaruso and I have it as our personal canon that Wendy and Lacey went to Bennington, back when it was still awesome.)
4. Five crossovers that never happened during Anthy's search for Utena. (Shoujo Kakumei Utena and others. Yes, I already know which 'others' I want to use.)

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Five Crossover Encounters During Anthy's Search - Part One

( The Earl; Yami no Matsuei )

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Five Crossover Encounters During Anthy's Search - Part Two

( XxxHolic; Yuuko and Watanuki )

Please don't forget to SPONSOR ME!

Five Times at Bennington Wendy was Glad to Have Lacey as Her Roommate - Part One

I got dumped by Tommy Tam the night before my midterm project in Biology of the Sexes with Betsy Sherman (colloquially known as ‘Sex with Betsy,’) was due. Though, to be fair, I did a fair bit of dumping myself, namely a cup of milk on his head. I’d sniffed it to make sure it had gone bad, first. No sense in wasting perfectly good milk, especially after I’d wasted four perfectly good months of her life on a deadbeat boyfriend, who’d finally resorted to accusing me of cheating on him with my roommate. Lacey, at least, had been amused.

Needless to say, my desire to attend class at fuck o’clock in the morning was severely diminished, no matter how entertaining the class was. Tommy was in that class, too, and we used to carry on a witty repartee from the back. “I’m going to have to find a new place to sit, if only to avoid drama.”

“If he’s going to be a drama whore, let him, Lacey retorted from behind a ten-foot poster with a far-too-damn-cheerful nude couple drawn on it. “Take that seat and claim it in the name of Wendy.”

“Can I claim it in the name of just not giving a shit anymore?”

“Sure, but only if you make a little flag with a poo pile on it to demarcate it. Ooh! You could demarcate Tommy Tam with it. Why does he compel one to call him both names, anyway? It’s unnatural and annoying.”

“I don’t know, but I bet Dr. Barbara Thornfield, MD, PhD would.” I’d never actually met Lacey’s mom, but at this point, I think I had a fairly extensive portrait of her character.

Lacey’s grin was a bit lopsided. “I bet we could sic her on him. He’d never recover. If he could even figure out what she was saying, what with her using words longer than one syllable that aren’t names of ska bands.”

“Now that’s just mean.” Funny, true, but mean.

“That’s me, the Countess of Mean. My sharp tongue makes men run in fear.” Coming from Lacey, biggest flirt this side of Kilpatrick, this was less than convincing. “Now… Jesus, it’s one in the morning. Go to sleep. You’ve got a class tomorrow – you crazy, crazy woman.”

Anything that made Lacey get up before noon was deemed spawn of Beelzebub.

I don’t remember going to sleep, or, to be honest, much about class, but when I got back, there was a copy of some Italian movie on my desk, with a note pinned to it.

Hey, Dub-Dub, it said.

Look what I found in the sale bin in Hanaford? I know I’m normally against violence, but it’s healthy to release aggression at a stressful time, so here you go. Have some zombies. Going by the blurb on the back, they probably deserve whatever’s coming to them.”

- Lacey

I looked at the DVD. Isle of the Flesh Eaters. Huh. Could be interesting.

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(no subject)

This just in: shadesong's cats are adorable and they like me! They also seem to like my bag, my shoes and my boobs. None of this is news, but it bears repeating.

Yes, I realize this is a fluff post, but the cats are, indeed, fluffy, so it fits. Would you like to SPONSOR ME anyway?

Oh, look, a Five Things prompt in actual Five Things format

Five Rumors About L That Persist at Wammy's (Death Note)


1. Enough of the teachers are still working operatives, at least part time, so there's always speculation about whether one of them is secretly L. Logic's against it - L's way too busy and too all-over-the-place to hold down a second job. Then again, he is L. Popular vote's on the history teacher, Ms. Harris, whose knowledge of her subject rivals that of a particularly observant time traveler, though Sr. Mercia, the art teacher who draws suspect portraits from witness accounts with eerie accuracy is also a contender.

2. There's no real agreement whether this L is the original or the latest in a line. The official statement is that he's the original and no records exist of previous such individuals, but anyone at Wammy's knows that statements exist to obfuscate and nothing's easier than editing a record.

3. Ok, so L's probably not Queen Elizabeth. That's just Mello making shit up. Showoff. Probably.

4. The girls, at least, have this image of L as a dashing Robin Hood Scarlet Pimpernel figure. Very romantic. Also inaccurate.

5. Most of the rumors regarding L's identity originate from L himself, all evidence of 'L' sounding an awful lot like a precocious and somewhat messed up teen or preteen notwithstanding.

And now, the resumption of a time-honored tradition!

...BPAL Reviews!

Drink Me
a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast

In imp: Kind of a foody, cakey smell.

On me: Buttery cake.

Verdict: Yum! I'd drink that.


Juliet
Sweet pea with stargazer lily, calla lily, heliotrope, honeysuckle, white musk and a touch of fresh pear.

In imp: Dry and dusty?

On me: Boring floral

Verdict: Where's my pear?


The Red Queen
Deep mahogany and rich, velvety woods lacquered with sweet, black-red cherries and currant.

In imp: Sweet wood, a bit cloying.

On me: Same, albeit less strong, though that might be a amount thing.

Verdict: Not really my cuppa.

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(no subject)

Lunch now. Post later. It smells great in here.

Sponsoring is kind of like soup, so SPONSOR ME, please.

More BPAL

Poisoned Apple
A perfect, lovely, gleaming red apple whose sweetness masks a swirl of narcotic opium, oleander, and hemlock.

In imp: As described, a lovely apple with something bitter behind it.

On me: Oh man, the apple goes 'way, and the narsty stays.

Verdict: Gag.


Black Tower
A sepulchral, desolate scent. Long-dead soldiers, oath-bound; the perfume of their armor, the chill wind that surges through their tower, white bone and blackened steel: white sandalwood, ambergris, wet ozone, galbanum and leather with ebony, teak, burnt grasses, English ivy and a hint of red wine.

In imp: Dusty and rich

On me: Mostly woodsy

Verdict: Not really my thing.


Robin Goodfellow
Dark musk, moss-covered wood, ragwort, heather, and sage.

In imp: Wintery woods. I don't know why they're wintery. They just are.

On me: Pleasantly herby, but faint.

Verdict: Nice enough.

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Five things Mello never said to Near - Part One

( Death Note; contains spoilers )

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Five Times at Bennington Wendy was Glad to Have Lacey as Her Roommate - Part Two

The first time I saw Lacey, she was lounging naked on the lawn in front of Leigh. I thought she was asleep, until she raised her arm straight up and waved at me. "Hey, new person." She was as Fresh as me, of course, but I had no way of knowing that at the time.

I waved back. "You should put some sunscreen on, or you're going to burn."

"So you're volunteering to rub said sunscreen over my naked body. Bold, for someone I just met." She was grinning.

And here I thought I was just starting to sound like my mother. "That...might have come out wrong."

"Happens." She sat up offering her hand. "Hi! I'm Lacey."

Before I could introduce myself, however, she shouted "Watch out!"

I shied out of the way just in time to avoid being beaned in the head by a Cortland apple. There were trees all over campus, the apples proving a delicious threat to life and limb, keeping the students responsive and in shape.

Lacey gave me a thumbs-up. "Nice moves! Are you a dancer?"

"Nope. Artist of the painting kind." Mom had insisted I wear a clean shirt, so my clothes didn't give me away.

...And speak of the devil, a dark-haired head (dyed, actually greying) stuck itself out the window of what I guessed must be my dorm room and yelled, "Wendy! Donde esta tu maleta roja?"

"Is that you?" Lacey asked.

"My mom."

"Hi, Wendy's Mom!" She got up, bouncing on the lawn.

Oh shit, I thought. My mom's gonna flip. She's gonna pull me out of this school before I even have the chance to unpack and stick me somewhere braindead. She was coming down the stairs to do that now. My time was running out...

...Why was my out-of-touch-with-the-twentieth-century mom smiling at the naked chick on my lawn?

"Hello. I'm Maria Watson. Are you Lacey, by any chance?"

Lacey looked surprised. "Yeah, that's me."

"Then you must be Wendy's roommate. Tell me, do you prefer the window-side bed, or the one by the door? Just so I can start unpacking, understand."

"Door's good,"Lacey said. "This way, the sun won't wake me up all the time.

"Excellent." Mom walked back inside, whispering at me as she went. "What a nice, social girl. She must have all the boys chasing after her."

Ok, so my mom was stoned. Or blind. Or maybe she just had a wild youth of her own she'd never told me about - which I was happy to stay ignorant of, thank you. Either way, all I felt was relief. "She likes you," I said.

"She's sweet." Lacey beamed up at our window. "So. Roommate."

"Guess so."

"Cool. Want to go in? I'm starting to fry in here."

"Sunblock," I said, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

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And now, a word for our sponsors

Between nevacaruso, slipjig and my mom's friend Connie (who's e-mailed me but hasn't familiarized herself with the Blogathon site yet), I'm up to $65 in pledges. Thank you!

Wouldn't these people be a wonderful example to follow? SPONSOR ME, please. You know you want to~

Five Crossover Encounters During Anthy's Search - Part Three

( Death Note; Yagami Light )

SPONSOR ME, please!

(no subject)

...Content on the way, but not done. Sorry.

SPONSOR my slow ass?

Five Crossover Encounters During Anthy's Search - Part Four

( BtVS; Buffy Summers )

SPONSOR ME, please!

(no subject)

And now, an entry in honor of the Hat of Destiny, which has apparently met its demise. Rest in peace, noble hat. You have done well, providing us with quirky questions last Blogathon (and possibly the Blogathon before that, but my brain's too zonked to remember at the moment.) You are gone but not forgotten. Particularly as my aforementioned brain would really like to take a brief break from fiction and do a nice list.

So, as I said, in honor of the hat:

Five things not to do with a drunken blogger

1. Feed to the cats
2. Use the drunken answers as a kind of Magic 8 Ball.
3. Cover with bumper stickers
4. Ingesting more booze
5. Pinata!

Disclaimer: This blogger is not drunk. She would, however, appreciate SPONSORSHIP.

Undignified Cat is Undignified!

Cross-posted from shadesong's journal, as well as witnessed in person:

You can't sponsor the cat, since she's not blogging, but you can SPONSOR shadesong, who's blogging for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, and you can SPONSOR ME.

(no subject)

I totally did not realize that we'd hit the third of the way through mark for some time now, but we totally did. Over one third down and we're still standing. Er. Sitting. Blogging. Time to celebrate!

Want to celebrate by SPONSORING ME?

Yet more BPAL

Caliban
The scent of the salty seas, bittersweet wine, palm and tropical ferns.

In imp: Herbs and tree bark. No ocean

On me: A dark herbal.

Verdict: Dangit, I would have liked to smell the seawater right now. We just got back from Cape Cod and I miiiiiisss it.


Bordello
Bawdy plum with amaretto, burgundy wine and black currant.

In imp: Very sweet and sensual.

On me: Dude! All the notes are showing up, especially the plum.

Verdict: Mmmm, I could lick myself. But I won't.


Shango
contains red apples, banana, chili pepper, coconut, pineapple, pomegranate and sugar cane.

In imp: Mixture of everything.

On me: Holy shit tasty apple!

Verdict: Another near-edible winner.

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SPONSOR ME, please.

The best five books I've read in 2009

1. The Stepsister Scheme, by Jim C. Hines
I can't say enough about how much I love Hines's characters here. They're so real and so very kickass! October, when the sequel comes out, cannot come soon enough.

2. Memory and Dream, by Charles de Lint.
Wow, was this book intense! This is de Lint at his finest, with the razor-edge insight into both the darker and the more hopeful facets of magic and humanity.

3. Shambling Towards Hiroshima and City of Truth, by James Morrow
I love how Morrow can take an absurd concept like an actor being hired to play Godzilla, to convince WWII-era Japanese dignitaries that the US has a megabeast biological weapon on their side, and make it both genuinely funny and genuinely heartwrenching.

In City of Truth, it's not the concept that gets you (though that's damn nifty too), but the raw insight into the way people uplift themselves and sink into denial all at the same time when faced with a painful truth. I also love that Morrow didn't go for a clear moral regarding the truth-only and lies-only lifestyles. Both are painted as positive in some aspects but ultimately flawed.

4. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
I can't describe it any better than to say that Gaiman makes it magical and does it right.

5. Santa Olivia, by Jacqueline Carey
Whereas I found the much-anticipated Naamah's Kiss to be a huge disappointment, Santa Olivia carried me right in and made me want to stay. I cared about the world and the characters. On a more specific to me note, this book features a relationship facing difficult decisions which could have easily dissolved into Big Misunderstandings and drama and it didn't. The characters communicated. God, that felt good.

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This is the part where I request that you SPONSOR ME. This is also where I ask for your book recs. Cause books make the Lily geek happy.

(no subject)

To complement the book post, cause that's how I roll:

I just realized that the only movie I've seen in theaters this year is the Trek reboot (which I liked a lot), and the only movie I look forward to seeing is Up. Yeah, there's the Harry Potter movie, but I generally wind up seeing those on DVD. They're ok, but I'm a book girl.

So. You all know you want to recommend current movies to me. Movies that were in theaters this year but aren't anymore are a'ok. Movies which won't be in theaters for some time are fine as well. Also, SPONSOR ME, please?

(no subject)

Ok, I seriously have to give a shoutout to emilytheslayer, who's made amazingly tasty food for those of us blogging with Team Venture. The lentil soup we had for lunch was the best I've ever had, and it was wonderfully complemented by the beer bread. The chili and garlic potatoes we're going to have for dinner smell ambrosial. I can't wait to eat them.

Can you tell I'm getting a bit peckish? I can.

Yes, I'll be posting more fiction later, but I need my second wind first.

Edit: The chili and taters tasted just as good as they smelled. Yum!

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The food is just one of the many bonuses of Blogathon participation. Lovely SPONSORS are another.

(no subject)

In her entry, nevacaruso defines the Akio Test: "Specific to fandom, but not just one fandom. A game in which crazy Utena fangirls try to figure out whether any given character would be able to withstand Akio's charms (for the purposes of the game, we assume that they don't know from the outset what he's about - though some characters are certainly capable of figuring it out over the course of the encounter. Whether or not they care is another matter)."

The obvious next step is for me to subject the characters in my current fandoms to said test.

( Let's start with Death Note )

To be continued. Death Note has a large cast, and I'll be doing all the ones I can gather enough character information on.

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Please, SPONSOR ME.

New Sponsor!

Thanks to marmota, I'm now up to $85. Thank you, dude!

Also, we are now at the halfway point. Twelve hours down, twelve to go! Go Team Venture, go!

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SPONSOR ME, please.

(no subject)

( Death Note characters Akio test continued )

SPONSOR ME, please.

(no subject)

( Continuing the Akio test, this time with XxxHolic characters )

SPONSOR ME, please.

(no subject)

Distracted by girlfriend, friends and kitties. Go, go, useless post, go!

Sponsor me?

(no subject)

The cats are wonderful and I am entirely in love with them. However, as a result, there is now hair in my tea. Ass. But. cute, fuzzy, kitty-pantalooned ass.

(no subject)

Working on actual content, I swear. It's not done yet, but it might well be, by the next posting point.

Sponsors still sought and welcome.