(no subject)
May. 7th, 2005 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cherryI've been thinking of writing a book. More on that later in the entry.
Apparently, it's WIP Amnesty Day again. This is oddly coincidental, as just last night I discovered several stories stuffed into a subfolder in my writing folder.
This isn't including "Higher Ground" (ie, the X-Men monster fic I started two years ago and really want to finish at some point but don't know if any of the comics people are still alive to read), or "Via Dolorosa," the RK/RV, RK/F, RV/S story that is driving me out of my mind by not letting me write it.
I don't always write too linearly, so any thing with:
*
*
means scene skip. I've deleted most of the trailing random images, though.
Life, In Living Colour
(Harry Potter/Sandman R/S, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lisew. Sorry, hon.)
Sirius at the end, and one last chance to change it all.
Sirius never thought dying would be much like this.
'Not that he'd ever thought about it much,' is what's supposed to follow, but the truth is he has. He spent thirteen years in Azkaban; with rapists and murderers and a cacophony of silence; watching the moon wax and wane as the colour slowly faded from everything he'd ever known.
He spent thirteen years with the Dementors and his cousins, and the expression (lack thereof) on Remus' face as he sat at the back of the courtroom. He remembers Moony settling with a weary precision on the hard wooden bench, the ghost of hope that rose in him.
He remembers better the way it died, crumbled and fell and shattered and every other way hope can break, when Remus sat there and watched him with eyes he'd seen full of anger and joy and lust but never seen so empty.
Dead eyes on him and hope in pieces on the floor around him, and Sirius couldn't bring himself to speak at his own trial.
So, yeah, Sirius has thought about what dying would be like.
Heaven, Hell (because God only knows he's made mistakes, fucked up and his best friend is dead in the ground, colder than he's been even on the darkest nights), Elysium, Valhalla, the Great Plains, the void -- none of it was like this.
There's a room, with white walls and a white floor and a blue ceiling. When he looks out the corner of his eye, the walls aren't really there at all, and at the edges of his vision he catches glimpses of corners that don’t exist.
“Hello,” says a girl from where there was only space before. She’s got black hair and black clothes the exact shade of the white walls, and he shakes his head.
“Dead,” he says, somewhat dazed, and the girl laughs.
“No,” she tells him, in a voice like tinkling bells. “Death. Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he says, and she laughs again.
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
(DCU/Marvel, Dick Grayson/Cecelia Reyes. Because it works scarily well and someone should do it. Just, if I did it, no one would read it.)
She’s good, but Dick’s been fighting and fucking and loving it his entire life, and she moves like someone beat ever counterblow, every stance, into her.
Bludhaven is a city of lines. Thin blue (black) lines of the precincts mottling the sidewalks, streets, and buildings like fresh bruises. Wide, sloppy red gashes of gang territories and drug wars, the desperation and flash around each street corner and the girls with wounded eyes and hard hearts. Phone lines, power lines, and laundry lines hanging out of fifth-story windows; and everywhere the trail of money, clinging to hands like mold.
Sometimes he thinks the city is no more than a densely crafted pencil sketch, and each grapple he throws only adds to the confusion.
Bludhaven is a broken city. Bludhaven is a city of hospitals, but sometimes it seems there is nothing it can do to fix itself.
There are four hospitals in Dick’s precinct alone, and the lots are always full. The chairs in the ER are vacant barely long enough for the orderlies to clean the blood from the cracked vinyl.
*
*
Which is one way to start it, or:
*
*
Whistle of wind and whiz of line and the twang of grapple on streetlight. Dick knows which bands haven't sold out and which new acts will last the year, but he's never been big into music. Muted growl of traffic, peal of horns, call of sirens, and the twittering of birds. Bludhaven at its finest.
Music just doesn't compare.
He lets the next line out a little more and swoops low. His feet pass within five inches of a man ranting in the street, and he catches a glimpse of the man's openmouthed face turning red. A child points. With a whoop, he's above the building again. It's been much too long, he thinks in the free fall before he launches another line.
The Haven is quiet for once, and if he's not sure he missed them, the looming buildings with their thin layer of grime are at least comfortable. Triple summersault and then he just flattens out and *dives.* Only snaps out his line at the last second, impact snaking up his arm. A woman's yellow scarf flutters at his passage.
Tucking into a pike, he lands on the rooftop. Pigeons, confused by the omnipresent orange haze (to them it's always day) scatter in every direction. Gives away his position, but he refuses to spend every moment of his life in paranoia.
Which is, of course, when he switches to back streets and stays far above the faded blur of faces. The next rooftop he lands on is carefully anonymous, covered with broken slates and loose gravel, and has a broken window two stories down. He's got clothes stashed inside, beneath the floorboards in a broken closet, and his badge is in a back pocket on the utility belt.
On the ground, mask stuffed in the back pocket of worn jeans, he walks like a tough and sticks to the shadows. He has reason to be paranoid about people noticing where he lives.
The apartment is not quite in the rough part of the city -- so much of Bludhaven is rough that for someone to notice him living in the good side of town on a cop's salary is something he can't afford. He doesn't own the building he lives in, but he owns the one where he picked up his clothes, and four more like it. He uses a different one every night, and has never landed upon his own balcony.
The front door sticks when he lets himself in, but he knows the right way to wiggle his key. (He could be inside more quickly without it, but there are appearances to maintain.) Cecelia from 4B is picking up her mail from her box in the landing, and she looks up at him and smiles. "Long night?" she asks. She's an emergency surgeon at St. Agatha's and sometimes his shifts as Officer Grayson, Average Cop, overlap with hers as Doctor Reyes.
"Just needed some downtime," he says. She doesn't mention his month-long absence. He's brought patients with bullet wounds to her as Nightwing as well, but she has no time or patience for super heroes.
The bulge of the mask in his back pocket seems to grow.
Her eyes are pinched and she smells like hospital (blood, disinfectant, latex gloves, and faded hope), and sometimes he can hardly be around her because the scent makes his stomach turn.
*
*
She’s good, but Dick’s been fighting and fucking and loving it his entire life, and she moves like someone beat every counterblow, every stance, into her.
Then there are the ones that are only a few paragraphs on paper, like the Hermione/Fred ("Loki, Raven, and the Last of the Trickster Gods) because even if everyone assumes you're going to end up with one of your childhood friends, it doesn't always happen, and because you can't be stupid and invent charms and potions -- even if they are used for mischief.
(This is how it is: mid summer, sticky and still. The Burrow shimmers in the heat and Hermione molds her back to the cool stone of the garden wall. The barest of shadows keeps it from being sun-baked and warm, and the sun is almost directly overhead.
The windows to the Burrow are open, inviting some sort of, any sort of breeze; but the winds can’t be tempted, and the sounds of Molly moving about in the kitchen drop to the wilted grass below.
Hermione is sitting at the edge of the garden, far enough away that the garden gnomes will leave her alone. Even on the still air the scent of begonias and roses still reaches her, and she can hear the steady, lazy drone of bumble bees. There’s a heavy tome perched on her crossed legs and sweat prickles on the back of her neck.)
I think that was forelvenjen4. Somewhere, there is also a few paragraph of "Danny met Rusty at the New York State Fair. Danny was counting cards and taking tourists, and Rusty had cotton candy on his fingers and lips."
Some of these may eventually be finished. I'm thinking of trying to devote a chunk of my writing this summer to finishing "Higher Ground," if there's anyone still interested. Gen-X, X-Men, sneaky!time travel, explosions... Of course, if even the people who were beta'ing weren't interesting.
-- Okay, so, otherwise, I've been thinking of working on a novel. Aphelion. Some of the characters are just crystalizing in my mind, and I know the middle and the end, but I have no idea if I'll be able to fill in the middle with enough interesting things.
Apparently, it's WIP Amnesty Day again. This is oddly coincidental, as just last night I discovered several stories stuffed into a subfolder in my writing folder.
This isn't including "Higher Ground" (ie, the X-Men monster fic I started two years ago and really want to finish at some point but don't know if any of the comics people are still alive to read), or "Via Dolorosa," the RK/RV, RK/F, RV/S story that is driving me out of my mind by not letting me write it.
I don't always write too linearly, so any thing with:
*
*
means scene skip. I've deleted most of the trailing random images, though.
Life, In Living Colour
(Harry Potter/Sandman R/S, for
lisew. Sorry, hon.) Sirius at the end, and one last chance to change it all.
Sirius never thought dying would be much like this.
'Not that he'd ever thought about it much,' is what's supposed to follow, but the truth is he has. He spent thirteen years in Azkaban; with rapists and murderers and a cacophony of silence; watching the moon wax and wane as the colour slowly faded from everything he'd ever known.
He spent thirteen years with the Dementors and his cousins, and the expression (lack thereof) on Remus' face as he sat at the back of the courtroom. He remembers Moony settling with a weary precision on the hard wooden bench, the ghost of hope that rose in him.
He remembers better the way it died, crumbled and fell and shattered and every other way hope can break, when Remus sat there and watched him with eyes he'd seen full of anger and joy and lust but never seen so empty.
Dead eyes on him and hope in pieces on the floor around him, and Sirius couldn't bring himself to speak at his own trial.
So, yeah, Sirius has thought about what dying would be like.
Heaven, Hell (because God only knows he's made mistakes, fucked up and his best friend is dead in the ground, colder than he's been even on the darkest nights), Elysium, Valhalla, the Great Plains, the void -- none of it was like this.
There's a room, with white walls and a white floor and a blue ceiling. When he looks out the corner of his eye, the walls aren't really there at all, and at the edges of his vision he catches glimpses of corners that don’t exist.
“Hello,” says a girl from where there was only space before. She’s got black hair and black clothes the exact shade of the white walls, and he shakes his head.
“Dead,” he says, somewhat dazed, and the girl laughs.
“No,” she tells him, in a voice like tinkling bells. “Death. Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he says, and she laughs again.
Bullet With Butterfly Wings
(DCU/Marvel, Dick Grayson/Cecelia Reyes. Because it works scarily well and someone should do it. Just, if I did it, no one would read it.)
She’s good, but Dick’s been fighting and fucking and loving it his entire life, and she moves like someone beat ever counterblow, every stance, into her.
Bludhaven is a city of lines. Thin blue (black) lines of the precincts mottling the sidewalks, streets, and buildings like fresh bruises. Wide, sloppy red gashes of gang territories and drug wars, the desperation and flash around each street corner and the girls with wounded eyes and hard hearts. Phone lines, power lines, and laundry lines hanging out of fifth-story windows; and everywhere the trail of money, clinging to hands like mold.
Sometimes he thinks the city is no more than a densely crafted pencil sketch, and each grapple he throws only adds to the confusion.
Bludhaven is a broken city. Bludhaven is a city of hospitals, but sometimes it seems there is nothing it can do to fix itself.
There are four hospitals in Dick’s precinct alone, and the lots are always full. The chairs in the ER are vacant barely long enough for the orderlies to clean the blood from the cracked vinyl.
*
*
Which is one way to start it, or:
*
*
Whistle of wind and whiz of line and the twang of grapple on streetlight. Dick knows which bands haven't sold out and which new acts will last the year, but he's never been big into music. Muted growl of traffic, peal of horns, call of sirens, and the twittering of birds. Bludhaven at its finest.
Music just doesn't compare.
He lets the next line out a little more and swoops low. His feet pass within five inches of a man ranting in the street, and he catches a glimpse of the man's openmouthed face turning red. A child points. With a whoop, he's above the building again. It's been much too long, he thinks in the free fall before he launches another line.
The Haven is quiet for once, and if he's not sure he missed them, the looming buildings with their thin layer of grime are at least comfortable. Triple summersault and then he just flattens out and *dives.* Only snaps out his line at the last second, impact snaking up his arm. A woman's yellow scarf flutters at his passage.
Tucking into a pike, he lands on the rooftop. Pigeons, confused by the omnipresent orange haze (to them it's always day) scatter in every direction. Gives away his position, but he refuses to spend every moment of his life in paranoia.
Which is, of course, when he switches to back streets and stays far above the faded blur of faces. The next rooftop he lands on is carefully anonymous, covered with broken slates and loose gravel, and has a broken window two stories down. He's got clothes stashed inside, beneath the floorboards in a broken closet, and his badge is in a back pocket on the utility belt.
On the ground, mask stuffed in the back pocket of worn jeans, he walks like a tough and sticks to the shadows. He has reason to be paranoid about people noticing where he lives.
The apartment is not quite in the rough part of the city -- so much of Bludhaven is rough that for someone to notice him living in the good side of town on a cop's salary is something he can't afford. He doesn't own the building he lives in, but he owns the one where he picked up his clothes, and four more like it. He uses a different one every night, and has never landed upon his own balcony.
The front door sticks when he lets himself in, but he knows the right way to wiggle his key. (He could be inside more quickly without it, but there are appearances to maintain.) Cecelia from 4B is picking up her mail from her box in the landing, and she looks up at him and smiles. "Long night?" she asks. She's an emergency surgeon at St. Agatha's and sometimes his shifts as Officer Grayson, Average Cop, overlap with hers as Doctor Reyes.
"Just needed some downtime," he says. She doesn't mention his month-long absence. He's brought patients with bullet wounds to her as Nightwing as well, but she has no time or patience for super heroes.
The bulge of the mask in his back pocket seems to grow.
Her eyes are pinched and she smells like hospital (blood, disinfectant, latex gloves, and faded hope), and sometimes he can hardly be around her because the scent makes his stomach turn.
*
*
She’s good, but Dick’s been fighting and fucking and loving it his entire life, and she moves like someone beat every counterblow, every stance, into her.
Then there are the ones that are only a few paragraphs on paper, like the Hermione/Fred ("Loki, Raven, and the Last of the Trickster Gods) because even if everyone assumes you're going to end up with one of your childhood friends, it doesn't always happen, and because you can't be stupid and invent charms and potions -- even if they are used for mischief.
(This is how it is: mid summer, sticky and still. The Burrow shimmers in the heat and Hermione molds her back to the cool stone of the garden wall. The barest of shadows keeps it from being sun-baked and warm, and the sun is almost directly overhead.
The windows to the Burrow are open, inviting some sort of, any sort of breeze; but the winds can’t be tempted, and the sounds of Molly moving about in the kitchen drop to the wilted grass below.
Hermione is sitting at the edge of the garden, far enough away that the garden gnomes will leave her alone. Even on the still air the scent of begonias and roses still reaches her, and she can hear the steady, lazy drone of bumble bees. There’s a heavy tome perched on her crossed legs and sweat prickles on the back of her neck.)
I think that was for
elvenjen4. Somewhere, there is also a few paragraph of "Danny met Rusty at the New York State Fair. Danny was counting cards and taking tourists, and Rusty had cotton candy on his fingers and lips."Some of these may eventually be finished. I'm thinking of trying to devote a chunk of my writing this summer to finishing "Higher Ground," if there's anyone still interested. Gen-X, X-Men, sneaky!time travel, explosions... Of course, if even the people who were beta'ing weren't interesting.
-- Okay, so, otherwise, I've been thinking of working on a novel. Aphelion. Some of the characters are just crystalizing in my mind, and I know the middle and the end, but I have no idea if I'll be able to fill in the middle with enough interesting things.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-08 02:32 am (UTC)I think you'll write a wonderful book!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-08 03:08 am (UTC)Hon, don't be that way. *G* I only had three or four more paragraphs, and it was just Ron, Harry, and Ginny flying. There wasn't any Ron yet.
That said, I could probably be convinced to finish it off. When's your birthday, again? *Smiles secretive smile*
I think you'll write a wonderful book!
Awww, thank you. *Smooch*
Also, if, theoretically, a person had copies of Adobe Photoshop 7.0, CS, and Elements, sitting on her computer, which would you recommend using?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-08 05:21 am (UTC)Well, theoretically, CS is the latest version, and has the most features... though, in theory, they're also quite similar.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-08 04:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-08 06:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-08 04:19 pm (UTC)So, if I were to at one point finish Higher Ground, you might be interested?
Of course, as neither of the girls who were beta'ing it said anything, I think I might have lost my audience.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-09 06:31 am (UTC)