Title: The Rain
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Ukitake, Ukitake/Unohana if you squint
Warnings: Angst, mentions of a character death, spoilers for Kaien.
Word Count: 283
Disclaimer: I am not Kubo Tite, nor do I own any part of Bleach. Drats.
A/N:  Written for week 57, "someday," at bleach_contest.

( And the rain falls around you, smothering you with tears... )

Moo Goo Gai Pan with white rice and a spring roll from the Chinese restaurant.  Deeeelish. 

1760s - 1780s, in America.  I'm in love with learning about the American Revolution and even though it kinda sucked for us at that point, we overcame.  Booyah.

Also, the clothing was hardcore awesome.  I could totally do it.

Title: Charity
Rating: PG-13 for mentions of naughty things
Characters/Pairings: Shuuhei, Rangiku, implied Gin/Rangiku, twisted Shuuhei/Rangiku
Word Count: 300
Summary: Shuuhei regrets his “generosity”
Disclaimer: I am not an Asian man. Nor can I draw. Draw your own conclusions. (Ho ho, pun!)
A/N: Written for week 54 “freak” at bleach_contest

( He knew she was serious... )

Yup, lovely finals week. Just what I want in my life right now. An excuse to write two 10-15 pagers for classes I had to take. Yeah, sounds like fun.

And then my laptop, my Ianto Jones, decides he's going to get infected with some viruses.

Really? Come on.

I mean, I have EVERYTHING due on Wednesday. Those papers? Yeah, haven't been written yet. And my Ianto is out of commission for now.

*Headdesk*

So here I am, in the library, trying to be studious. Only I work better in my room with noise and mess and food and lounge clothes.

I really hope when I take my laptop in to the computer people tomorrow they'll be able to fix it. My life is on that thing. And all my friends live in it, haha.

Le sigh, let's hope I can make it past Wednesday. And also hope I can find the time to write some fic amidst all this chaos. I need a release, yo.

Because I've been wondering for a while...


What Division Are You In?
Hosted By theOtaku.com: Anime

Woo, I would totally be content working under Unohana! She's awesome and amazing and Captain Mom!

My other choices, however, would be 8th and 13th Squads. Kyouraku and Ukitake? Yeah, I'd be there with the BFFs.

Stars, I love Bleach way too much.

Title: Halcyon Days
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Byakuya, Renji/Rukia, hint of Byakuya/Hisana
Word Count: 299
Summary: Byakuya witnesses a sunlit moment between youths.
Disclaimer: Not Kubo Tite. Just playing with his toys. I promise I’ll put them back.
A/N: Written for week 51 “Rukia” at bleach_contest. Also, this isn’t beta-read, so all mistakes are mine.

( Swirling shades of blue, slow dancing in your sky, the sun kisses the earth, and I hush my urge to cry... )

Title: Better
Rating: PG-13 / T
Pairings/Characters: Byakuya/Hisana
Warnings: Angst, character death, a bit of queasiness. Spoilers for the ByaHisa relationship, although that should be general knowledge by now, right?
Word Count: 797
Disclaimer: I am not Kubo Tite, nor do I own any part of Bleach. Darn.
A/N:  Written for Week 50 "alcohol" at bleach_contest

( Byakuya couldn't breathe... )

Title:  She Left
Rating:  G
Pairings/Characters:  Light Ukitake/Unohana
Warnings:  Possible spoilers for the Hueco Mundo arc, right before Turn Back the Pendulum.
Word Count:  148
Disclaimer:  I own nothing...unfortunately...
A/N:  Written for Week 48 at bleach_contest

( I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day, Take me to the place I love, Take me all the way... )

Seriously.  According to weather.com, it is 76 degrees outside.  And if I open the door to hear the sounds of impending spring, I am surrounded by blaring music and fellow students celebrating in their own special ways.  *Cough*

It's perfect picnic weather and I can't join in the revelry.

Because I have to work in an hour.  I get to be cooped up inside being my little catering self.

Grr.
( But in happier news, FMA style... )

From evil_little_dog 

1. Where did your LJ handle come from?
I was obsessed with Torchwood at the time I joined (still am, but not as much) and I wanted a name to match my default icon of Jack and Tosh dancing.  In time.

2. How do you style your hair?
I...don't.  I comb it out and sometimes put it up in a ponytail.

3. What is making you happy right now?
One of my housemates invited some friends over for the night and we are caRAZY.

4. What are you currently reading?
Oh geez.  Order 66 by Karen Traviss and The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery.

5. Do you need music to study/write?
Absolutely.  I can't study unless there's something in the background and when I write I need mood music to help me evoke certain emotions.

6. What is the last song on your play list?
See question five.

7. What was your first hair dye job?
It was my sixteenth birthday and my girlfriends took me out, got my hair cut, then did an at-home highlighting job..

8. Do you have a crush at the moment?
Not really.  Well, just fictional characters and celebrities.  But I am perfectly content with my boyfriend.

9. You get a time machine... where do you go?
Like ELD said, TARDIS!  Woot!

10. What was the last thing you ate today?
Sloppy Joe mix that my housemate made.  Deeeelicious.

11. What is your favorite color?
Light blue.

12. What websites do you visit daily?
Facebook, LJ, YouTube, and Yahoo Mail.

13. What's your favorite food?
Oh geez, a TON.  I'll eat almost anything.  Just not fish.

14. Which languages do you wish you spoke?
Latin, German, Spanish, Italian, Welsh, Russian, and German.

15. What is your biggest pet peeve?
When people refuse to learn how to spell.  Even after I tell them how to spell words fifty times over.  Grr.

16. Do you have birthmark?
I have a patch of freckles on my left forearm.  Quite cute, actually.

17. Who was your childhood idol?
Princess Leia.  No joke.

18. Where would you like your next holiday to be?
Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

19. What is your favorite chocolate from a box of chocolates?
Caramel, milk chocolate covered almonds, um...

20. Tell me something you love about the person who tagged you.
Wasn't tagged, but she's a crazy awesome writer and her fandomness makes me happy.

So...about one of the fic ideas I wrote about last time.

The bunnehs sunk their teeth into my arms and legs.  Luckily, my fingers are free for typing.

Anywho, it's the Samurai Champloo *that show is so much fun to watch over and over and over and....* fic that isn't inspired by the Everclear song.  I thought it would be a fun *and angsty* little piece that I could whip out once I got myself to type it, but...it's turning into something more.  It's gaining some legs and while this is my first Champloo fic ever and I'm worried about characterizations...the characters are speaking to me.  I can see everything happening in my mind and while I'm torturing them by keeping them in one spot, they're taking it quite well.

I can't say who's being good because that would ruin the fic.

But, one of the characters is seriously really growing for me.  While they've always been interesting, I'm just seeing something beneath the surface with this piece and it fascinates me. 

Also, if anyone is really clever and can spot some other connections and/or my writing is just spot-on, then I'll be really excited.

Gah, this fic is taking over my mind!  I'm so glad I have no classes on Fridays. 

Alright, just an update, I hope everyone is well and dealing with this ridiculous weather.  By the by, if anyone wants to come over and take the snow around me, then be my guest.  I'm tired of it already.

I has a new banner!  Header, whatever you crazy folks call it.

All credit goes to lillypuff.

Also, I keep getting random plot bunnies for anime fics.

But do I ever write them?  Noooo...because I am a bad fanfic writer and fail at the internetz.

But seriously, I got this weird idea while listening to Memory *Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, beautiful song* and walking around campus while it was lightly snowing.

Side note:  This was when it was normalish temperatures and not the -12 wind chill we've got going on in Ohio.  In other words, DISGUSTING, yo.

Anywho, I suddenly could imagine Spike Spiegel walking through the snow, then Ed and Alphonse Elric and Winry walking through the snow, and then Vash the Stampede remembering the simulated snow on the ships before the Big Fall.

It's amazing how music can inspire so much.  Even if it's just one piece of music.

And then the song "What It's Like" by Everclear keeps inspiring either another Bebop fic or a Samurai Champloo thinger.  Read the lyrics and you'll see what I mean.

And then I was walking back from classes today and got to thinking about the Champloo trio.  My thoughts often turn morbid while walking around and this time was no different.  I started wondering who would die first in their lives:  Jin, Mugen, or Fuu?  Well, this spawned yet another idea and I won't say how that one ends.

Alright, this is really rambly and possibly cracky, but whatever.  I haven't had a real update in a while and I wanted to ramble.  Yay rambling!

And I keep typing that as rample.  Grr, my typing fingers are failing me!

McAlpin's.  The nearest store to me was taken over by Dillard's which is lame.  McAlpin's at least had SALES, unlike Dillard's which, if you're lucky, will have one or two a year.  Or if they have more, they're like 2% off.  McAlpin's also had cute stuff, where as Dillard's sells boring clothes most of the time and stuff no one really needs or wants. Lame Lame Lame.

I can remember going to McAlpin's with family for school shopping and getting excited.  Going shopping at Dillard's?  No excitement.  Just boredom.

Plus, McAlpin's is a lot more fun to say.  It's bouncy and energetic.  Dillard's is...I've used "lame" too much in this post, so let's go with..."lethargic."  Yeah, I like that one.

Title:  Our Game
Rating:  PG for mild violence
Characters/Pairings: Implied Spike/Julia
Summary:  Spike is watched as he struggles down the Syndicate steps.  Spoilers for Spike's backstory and end of the series.
Disclaimer:  I own nothing.  Except my copy of the Bebop movie.  *Huggles movie to self*
A/N:  This hasn't been beta'd, but I wanted to get a Bebop fic out into the world.

( Things are turning a deeper shade of blue, And images that might be real, May be illusion... )

Title: First Summer
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Ed/Winry, Al, Pinako
Summary: A quiet summer day at the Rockbell house. Complete with lemonade and fresh dinner. Post-manga, no spoilers I can think of.
Disclaimer: I am not Hiromu Arakawa. If I were, I would be Asian and an awesome artist. Both of which I am not.
A/N: Written for evil_little_dog ’s challenge. Yeah, this is totally not Christmas/Yule/winter-themed, but I hope she likes it nonetheless!

( You call my name, I come to you in pieces... )

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Lo! Who is that, striding amidst the icy wasteland! It is Dancing_in_time, hands clutching a bladed baseball bat! And with a spectacular scream, her voice cometh: "I'm going to make tacos with your corpse!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

Hee...

( Tooku, tooku, omoi hatenaku... )

Yeah, no one will probably read this, but whatevs.  I've gotta keep the journal alive, you know?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible - Various
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding  (I read most of it for my English class in high school.  I want to purge those memories from my brain.  Forever.  Worst.  Book.  Ever.)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Um...looks like I need to step it up some.

Fanfic writer's meme stolen from strandedthought 

( And the sun will set for you... )