A Minor Variation

( lyrical prompts )

( quotations )

Remember how a bit back I mentioned that I kind of wanted to write a Gundam SEED Star Wars AU?

...yeah, I still really kind of want to do that.

Fortunately I am not yet Seized With Inspiration for it, which is an odd thing to say "fortunately" about, but I have plenty other fannish things to fixate on right now, and I'm still working on "Fortune Favors the Brave," not to mention all those notecards that I've done up in preparation for making serious headway on "With Good Intentions," so it is definitely just as well.

And yet...

( Here are some thoughts, so that I may find them later when I want them. )

Am I completely insane for even thinking about this?

Current terrible idea occupying my brain: a bizarre Gundam SEED/Star Wars AU hybrid. Mostly because Murrue would make a fantastic Jedi.

Of course, about the only thing this idea has going for it aside from that is that ridiculous Gundam SEED names and ridiculous Star Wars names go reasonably well together...

Watched some more Glass Fleet.

( It's still kind of on crack. Cut for length and oblique nonspecific pseudo-spoilers. And crazy. )

Meanwhile, probably because it's Global Plot Tiems on BnB... I'm getting random fiction ideas. For one thing, as already mentioned, I've gotten renewed inspiration for that FFVIII Squalltimecia fic; I'm also inspired once again to write "Persistence of Memory," which I originally plotted something like four years ago and never wrote because Squall's deep thoughts are hard for me to write. So maybe I can turn out at least part of one or both of them sometime in the near future.

And at least one Gundam SEED fic, WTF. I'm not sure but I think this is indirectly annwyd's fault somehow.

And a story set in an alternate version of nexuscity which doesn't actually use any of the characters established in NC so far, what the hell, brain. It's still sketchy, as, let's face it, all of my ideas are, but presently it involves a pre-teen or teenaged girl refugee from a world that fell to a Zombie Apocalypse (heavily inspired by funwithrage's Ivy Freeman); a Sekrit Society organized for purposes as yet unclear but related to, at least as they see it, keeping Nexus City from going all to pieces and/or getting taken over by Scary Supernatural Stuff; and the guy who ends up taking the girl in. He lives in an abandoned church, and the community in general, although aware that he's not actually an official priest, accepts him as the next thing to because, let's face it, Nexus City doesn't exactly have a seminary or whatever it is that Catholics go through to become priests.

The community in general doesn't know that he's one of the aforementioned Sekrit Society's wet-works men, but what they don't know won't hurt them. At least not so long as he kills it first.

This is so done in so many ways, but whatever.

It is probably the result of hitting springtime again that I feel suddenly inspired to write more. (Well, that and scening on TIG woke up my SEEDfic muse, which is a little awkward since I think the moment has kind of passed for everyone else, but whatever.) Suddenly I have... ideas again! Holy shit.

Well, okay, a lot of these ideas I have had for quite a while and just not done much with them.

But anyway. With the signs of my inspiration renewing itself, it's about the time of year for me to organize a list of Fic Ideas I Plan To Write, in the hopes of actually getting around to some of them this time.

( Cut for spam. )

I have been trying to write an Andy/Murrue fic since February.

That is kind of sad.

Particularly since I really haven't made much progress worth mentioning. I have an assortment of ideas, but they have yet to gel into an actual fic. I tried a bit of semi-stream-of-consciousness noodling with just dialogue to see what I could shake loose, but I can't say it's helped all that much.

( extremely fragmentary random Andy/Murrue dialogue snippets )

The idea that I'm simmering focuses on Valentine's Day and the unique significance it holds in the SEEDverse following Bloody Valentine and the ensuing war - there's something really intriguing about seeing an established lovers' holiday turn into a day for remembering grief and loss, and the particular perspective that Andy and Murrue would have on it, having both lost the ones they loved to the war. Understanding one another's grief draws them together, but it can't be easy to build a relationship when the ghosts of both your lost loves are (metaphorically) still so present.

I don't have a storyline, just an assortment of things I'd like to explore, like how Andy, who as a Coordinator and a soldier must be accustomed to a high level of physical ability, deals with physical disability - and more significantly how he settles into a civilian life and how much he has to struggle with boredom (cribbing shamelessly from the novelization, in which he refers to boredom as "my oldest enemy" and is pleased after first fighting Kira because he's found a stimulating challenge) - how the two of them came to be living together as shown in the earlier parts of Destiny, the reason for which I imagine must have been a series of practical considerations (Andy having to get used to brand new prosthesis, Murrue needing a place to live since she can't really go back to the Atlantic Federation after deserting) carefully arranged around the more basic need to not be alone - the basic concept of the relationship, mutual support and life going on and really not being about Romance or Passion or zomg True Love because at this point they've been there and done that and don't need to cover that ground again, and God, Murrue's tired of being the one left behind - and finding the balance between honoring the memory of the one you loved, and not being so tied to those memories that you aren't really living the life that they died to protect.

And I am embarrassed at how long it took me just to hack out those last two paragraphs. :(

Edit: I also kind of want to make some use of Derek Walcott's "Sea Canes," which may be cheap of me, but...

( cut for awesome )

Have not written so much in the past couple days. But with fall, and therefore November and NaNoWriMo getting closer, I've been further pondering the whole Fate & Luck business. More and more I'm thinking that I'd like to do this in a more steampunkish setting rather than simply using the modern world. That may be the rosemush influence talking, but it also opens up the possibility of including the whole mess of pseudosciences that people came up with back when science was still a pretty new concept, and gives me more opportunities to play around with the ways that the various personifications' spheres of influence run up against the mortal world, and how they interact with the world, and stuff like that.

But I still don't really have much of a plot. I'm toying with the idea of trying to come up with a storyline involving Luck's sister, and giving her stuff to do that doesn't directly involve Fate or Luck, at least not until the shit really starts hitting the fan. There's always the possibility of having Fate's plan determine some nasty fate for her, since that would definitely bring Fate and Luck into conflict, but I certainly don't want her to be a passive participant in all of this. Using the steampunk setting gives me the option of having people try to use their newfound sciences for Something Big that could go Catastrophically Wrong... still chewing on this.

Also stewing over some parallels between Fate & Luck's dynamic in the pairings of Art and Science, and Love and Lust... other possible personifications are Fear, Beauty, Memory, Sleep and Dream... I already have general concepts for Nature and Death... And I could include Chaos as an antagonist as well, but I don't know that there's really room. While Chaos would oppose Fate, that would also take away from the whole theme of free will and taking responsibility for your actions and blah blah fishcakes.

Anyway, off to work now.

Rediscovered "Play By Ear," an FFVIII vignette I started way back when and never finished. I have now finished it, though I'm not posting it quite yet because it's sorely in need of some refining. (Anybody want to beta?)

Nevertheless, the writing streak continues! Next up... I should do some more work on "Lion Passant" or that what-if. Or something for 30kisses. Maybe. Possibly. I have this vague notion of trying to make Laguna and General Caraway have a conversation about their respective children. Because I'm mean.

According to The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference, "margaritomancy" is a form of divination involving pearls.

I am struck by the urge to revive my urban fantasy PI storyline in order to set up a joke involving this term, my main character, her witchcraft-practicing associate, and some tequila.

Note to self: next time I'm in a bookstore, must check the New Age section for something to use as a reference for veg-o-magic.

Ahee.