tammaiya | WiP meme

Wow, the radio silence these days just keeps getting longer, doesn't it? Well, I aten't dead (... yet), but the thing is, somehow when I'm stressed and under pressure I find it really hard to make entries, even about inane things. Like the enormity of it overwhelms me, or something. I compose all these entries in my head, and never post them. Actually, my tendency to do that with a lot of things increases as I get more stressed out, I think; all these emails I compose in my head but never send, conversations I never have, things I never deal with until I'm ready to cope again... and a long time has passed. Which sometimes stops me dealing with it anyway.

The reason I'm even posting this is mostly just to do a meme, of all the ridiculous things, and I felt like I couldn't just post it without this. Maybe as an explanation, if anyone wants one, but mostly for me. The other day, the post I was composing in my head said something like, "I'm trying to decide whether I'm having a mental health crisis or not; is the fact that I'm even thinking about it proof that I am, or the fact that I have to think about it proof that I'm not?" I think now, though, I've tipped over in favour of the affirmative. It's weird... in a number of ways. I have bouts of depression almost - no, probably at least annually. Some years worse than others, sometimes it's more like per semester, sometimes it's just a bit of the blues from assessment stress or what have you. I can usually tell, and I can usually gage the severity. This time is weird because it almost doesn't feel like I'm THAT bad, except then I actually analysise my thought and behaviour patterns and go, hold on, WHAT?

The other thing that's weird is that I feel really uncomfortable talking about it, even to the friends I talk to about everything. Or maybe that's not so weird; I have certain issues I just get awkward about. Usually, though, I have this perception of myself as being someone who can talk about this stuff, who's at least self-aware and can deal with it to an extent and has no problem asking for help. Now, every time I feel the urge to talk about it well up, it gets clamped down, qualified and reduced into a much smaller statement: I'm sick of exams. I'm fed up. I hate this. Etc.

Phew. Okay, I'm done.

... Don't feel like you need to say anything, by the way. For once, this honestly isn't a self-validation post, I just really wanted - needed - to make myself say this out loud (or type it in public, whatever). To try and get over that block, even if I'm still talking around it a bit.

Feel free to comment on the meme, though!

Now that's out of the way... it's truly terrifying how many word files I opened in pursuit of this thing. And how many directions I am now being pulled in, ficways. I already limited it to things which have an actual good chance of being worked on, ever. Oh, and how many of these things are actually a reasonable length. Most of them are 1000-4000 words. Like four of them are actually over 4000. WHY.

At least you can see I'm not actually lying about there being sequels to This Starless City! ... >___>

Fandom/pairing: Kamen Rider W; Shoutarou/Philip
Title/filename: Human Nature, A Study
Current status: ~730 words; ??%
Spoilers: Light, for the "Nightmare H" arc (ep 29-30)

There were many things pertaining to the human heart which Philip had yet to truly comprehend. Emotions, it turned out, were one thing that couldn’t be researched, had to be personally experienced. It was a prospect both exciting and somewhat unsettling, as Philip made a point of embracing his new freedom with all the interest and joy it deserved and yet… while his newly awakened and rather insatiable curiosity demanded to know, insisted that all knowledge was to be cherished, it was not so easy to adjust to life, wild and unfettered, like Shoutarou lived it. Emotions in others were intriguing, novel; emotions in oneself, particularly upon first encounter, were somewhat daunting.

It was better to know, but not always pleasant.

In any event, “jealousy” was (or at least, it certainly had been) one such grey area. Philip had looked it up in the Planet Library after the case with Himeka and the Nightmare Dopant; in black and white print, it had seemed very simple, although not fully comprehendible. Jealousy: a negative emotion stemming from a desire to monopolise. Resentment of another in some way taking away what is perceived to be one’s own. See also, jealous lover: wishing to assert possession over another person; a sign of doubt and insecurity.

Fandom/pairing: Kamen Rider Kabuto; Kagami/Tendou
Title/filename: distance makes the heart grow
Current status: ~4900 words; maybe 50% or so?
Spoilers: Light, for the ending

“Um,” Kagami said, with the feeling that he had no idea what conversation they were having. “I’m. Sorry?”

“When I spoke to Hiyori,” Tendou continued in that same dangerously even-measured tone, ignoring Kagami’s feeble attempt at an apology, “she said she didn’t know where you were. Because you were late, and you. didn’t. call. Either of us.”

Kagami gaped speechlessly at the phone, entirely lost for a response. The silence stretched out tensely between them, and Kagami could feel every single one of the kilometres of distance between Paris and the spot where he stood.

“Don’t do it again,” Tendou said finally.

Fandom/pairing: Kamen Rider Kabuto; Kagami/Tendou
Title/filename: Messy
Current status: ~4200 words; about 70%, I'd wager
Spoilers: I wrote this before, like, episode 18 or something. Forget spoilers, it's probably not even quite canon-compliant after that point. Also a little NSFW.

“Tendou,” Kagami protests, voice breaking as Tendou leans forward again, positioning himself, with his legs spread over Kagami’s hips and his palms flat on either side of Kagami’s head. “Tendou, seriously, we don’t have to—”

“If you start something, finish it,” Tendou says, just a little shakily, but when he opens his mouth again, he’s genuinely taken aback by Kagami slapping a palm over it with a really pained expression before he can say anything else.

“If you bring your grandmother up now, Tendou,” Kagami warns him, “I swear to god, I will punch you in the face.”

Tendou gives him a challenging look, silently daring him to even try it, before biting down on Kagami’s hand at the same time as he starts to sink down on Kagami’s body, and he takes vindictive pleasure in the way Kagami’s eyes practically roll back in his head.

Fandom/pairing: Harry Potter; none
Title/filename: Hermione travel fic (obviously, this is not the final title)
Current status: ~800 words; about 30%, maybe?
Spoilers: Vague for book 7? Not really in this excerpt.

She screams and screams and tries to brush them away but nothing she does works. After a moment of hysteria, the spiders suddenly disappear; they were never there.

Hermione’s skin still crawls, though, and she understands Ron’s fear of spiders better now than she ever wanted to.

The woman lowers her hand, a faintly amused smile touching her painted lips. “You Western wizards focus too much on raw power,” she says, her voice low and melodic. “You forget the importance of inner strength. If the spirit is weak, it is easy to fool the mind. Why go to the effort of a physical attack when illusion allows one to far more simply drive your enemy to wound themselves? Your wizards lack imagination.”

Her wand is obsolete in Japan, because here strength is focussed inwards, not channelled outwards. The chants are harder to remember and many spells require much more preparation and time than the spells she learnt at Hogwarts, but Hermione quickly begins to respect the various strands of oriental magic. The realisation that in many ways, the magic-users of Japan are far stronger than she is, than other English witches and wizards are, follows somewhat more gradually, but she learns to bite her tongue when the inevitable urge to say “but couldn’t you just…” arises.

Fandom/pairing: SO REAL; Sonozaki Sakura/Fuwa Natsuyuki (BEHOLD, OBSCURITY. Light novel that exists only in Japanese!)
Title/filename: steps along the road to progress
Current status: ~600 words; about 30%
Spoilers: Vague for endi-- why am I bothering, no one will even know this fandom except for me and Mari...

“Kyou would be lonely if I left,” Natsuyuki said, not really talking about Kyou at all.

“Kyou would miss you,” Sakura agreed, and the heavy weight of his chin digging into Natsuyuki’s shoulder made him think that Sakura wasn’t really talking about Kyou, either.

He leaned back against Sakura’s body, feeling the warmth of Sakura’s bare chest radiating through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

“Just Kyou?”

Sakura tilted his head to the side slightly, hair brushing against the side of Natsuyuki’s face.

“Maybe the pot-plant,” he conceded, and Natsuyuki laughed.

Fandom/pairing: Suikoden Tierkreis; Meruvis/Asad
Title/filename: yandere!Meruvis
Current status: ~10500 words; maybe 90%, IDEK, make it ennnnd
Spoilers: haha, yeah, right.

“I just… wanted to say… thank you,” Asad said haltingly, twining his fingers together and ducking his head slightly to look up at Meruvis from beneath his fringe. “For, you know, saving me and things. But you didn’t come by the sickbay, so, um…” He floundered for a moment, not quite sure what to say, and then blurted, “Why are you avoiding me?”

“Why am I…?” Meruvis repeated, staring at him with narrowed eyes, and then suddenly threw his pen down and shot to his feet, chair clattering back with his clear agitation. “Do you have no self-preservation instincts?” he demanded, stalking over to where Asad stood, and his palm made a loud noise as it smacked down on the stones by Asad’s head.

Asad gulped, pressing back into the wall.

“I’m kind of wondering that myself,” he said faintly.

Fandom/pairing: Suikoden Tierkreis; Meruvis/Asad
Title/filename: Meruvis is a creeper (it's a companion to yandere!Meruvis, okay. SHUT UP YOU WISH YOUR FILE NAMES WERE THIS AWESOME.)
Current status: ~900 words; fff, 1%? Okay perhaps a little pessimistic. Maybe 5-10%.
Spoilers: Again, not so much.

Of course, all things considered, it was obvious that Asad was no real danger. He was too timid to ever make a decisive move, and Chrodechild was too dense when it came to romance for anything less to make so much as a dint. Asad would probably just pine from afar for the rest of the foreseeable future and Meruvis would be free to let him continue on peacefully, puzzle solved.

That should have been a relief, but unfortunately for Meruvis, he was already overly invested. Seeing Asad make a fool of himself falling all over the oblivious princess only increased Meruvis’s own urge to control, to possess, to force Asad to look at him instead, at only him.

He restrained himself, of course. He took pride in his implacable façade of calm professionalism, and the most he would allow himself was an extra layer of ruthlessly cool logic to infuriate an already-riled Asad and the occasional glare when Asad was talking to Chrodechild with that ridiculous starry-eyed expression that made him look like a love-struck teenager.

No, Asad was no danger to Chrodechild. If he was a danger to anything, it was Meruvis’s self-control.

Fandom/pairing: Tales of Destiny (remake?); Stahn/Leon
Title/filename: WHAT IS LOOOOOVE
Current status: ~110 words; pfft, I have no idea, it's A HUNDRED WORDS. And yet I still am somehow fond of it. It's a miniscule speck of something longish, probably, AUs are like that.
Spoilers: It's an AU.

Leon stared in mute disgust, momentarily incapable of mustering even his usual sarcasm.

“I don’t know what horrifies me more,” he said eventually. “That you’re sock-dancing with a broom around your apartment singing at the top of your lungs, or that you’re doing so to bad 80s pop.”

“Hey, Haddaway is totally awesome!” Stahn protested, skidding to a stop and only looking mildly sheepish, despite being caught indulging in behaviour that Leon thought should at least warrant a decent degree of proper embarrassment. “Hi, Leon.”

“And you wonder why I call you unsophisticated,” Leon answered dryly. “Country boy.”

Fandom/pairing: Tales of Destiny (original); Rutee/Stahn/Leon
Title/filename: Guidance Counselling
Current status: ~1300 words; 40%? *hopeful* ... That's probably overly optimistic
Spoilers: Not in this bit, at least.

Of course the guards let Stahn through; even by himself, he was one of the world’s potential savers, and he seemed to have unofficially taken over from Leon as the leader at some point, too. Whatever his purpose was, the soldiers reasoned, it had to be vitally important.

The king reasoned the same thing, which was why it took a moment of lag before his brain caught up to his ears and realised that he wasn’t hearing what he’d been expecting to hear.

“And I really like Rutee, cause she’s strong and pretty and she’s actually one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, even though she tries to pretend she’s only doing things to be selfish and doesn’t care unless it’s about money, but I’m pretty sure she just thinks of me as a dumb country boy. Plus she’s always picking fights with Leon and making him even more grumpy, even though I also really like him too ‘cause he’s really smart and cute and, well, you know how you just want to ruffle his hair and give him a hug? Only, um, he zaps me any time I even think that. I don’t think Leon likes me. Actually I don’t think Leon likes anyone but I think he especially doesn’t like me. Which doesn’t make any sense. I always try to be nice to him! Except when, you know, he’s really obnoxious. Which is a lot of the time. But still. The point is that I like both of them and neither of them like me and, so, you know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do and I thought, you generally give pretty good advice, so maybe you’d have some idea?”

Stahn looked expectantly at the king. The king stared back.

“Uh,” his majesty said eventually, and opened his mouth again to tell Stahn firmly that this was quite ridiculous and he was far too important to have his time wasted on trivial matters of teenage drama. Instead, what came out was this: “Leon is quite reserved and not the kind of person who is very good with expressing himself through words, and I believe that Rutee resembles him in this aspect. Perhaps you should try to express your feelings through demonstration. They do say actions speak louder than words, after all.”

Fandom/pairing: Tales of the Abyss; Jade/Saphir (Peony/Nephry)
Title/filename: rose-tinted glasses (HS!AU JxD)
Current status: ~2000 words; no idea how long it will be, it is probably a monster in the making. Fucking AUs.
Spoilers: ... Fucking AUs.

As Jade’s best friend, Peony trusted him more than anybody else on the planet—with his own life, and with Nephry’s life, too. But Jade’s moral compass had always been a bit skewed and when it came to Saphir, Peony couldn’t help feeling scared both of and to an extent for him. The most terrifying part of it all was Saphir’s unconditional blind faith, the puppy-like trust and devotion that persisted despite all the things Jade did to destroy it.

Peony was afraid that one day Jade would actually hurt Saphir badly enough to kill him, and Saphir would just let him.

The problem was the inherent unhealthiness lacing their relationship, but Peony had no idea how to fix that. Jade wouldn’t listen, and Saphir didn’t want to. Jade was never honest about his feelings and probably wouldn’t really show he really cared about someone unless they were literally about to die, but the very nature of the interaction between he and Saphir had created a situation where Peony was fairly certain that Jade wouldn’t even admit to himself that Saphir was important to him. Peony suspected even Jade was frightened deep down of the absolute power he held over Saphir, but unlike any normal person, his reaction to this was to escalate the violence and push further and hurt deeper as if to prove to himself he didn’t care. When it came to Saphir, Jade wouldn’t set limits on himself and Saphir wouldn’t stop him, and as a bystander Peony could see exactly how dangerous that was.

He would trust Jade to kill for him or die for him, but he couldn’t trust Jade to know when to stop, and he wondered if Jade would keep pretending Saphir was nothing more than a persistent nuisance to him even if (when, Peony’s treacherous mind insisted) Saphir wound up on a cold hard slab in the morgue.

Fandom/pairing: Tales of the Abyss; Guy/Luke/Tear (Asch/Natalia)
Title/filename: ToA HS!AU guy/luke/tear
Current status: This is the entire thing. XD; It was written for a fic meme, but wants to exist in far more detail. There's planning and art, at least.
Spoilers: ... Really this is an extension of the one above.

Guy was very, very conscious of Asch's glare drilling into his back.

"Guy!" Luke exclaimed, smile lighting up his entire face. "You came!"

"Of course," Guy said, grinning back and ruffling Luke's hair. Asch's glare intensified. "I said I would, didn't I? Can't let you fail maths, after all."

"I could tutor him," Asch growled. "Even if he is retarded."

Luke blinked, totally missing the way Asch was obviously envisioning Guy's painful evisceration in loving detail. "Eh? But you said you were too busy..."

Asch snorted, crossing his arms sullenly but not contradicting Luke. He had this bad way of shooting himself in the foot like that, Guy thought, both with his brother and with Natalia; if he learned to be honest with his feelings he'd get a lot further.

"Anyway, let's go to my room, Guy! That way we won't be disturbed," Luke continued, and Asch's teeth made an almost audible grinding noise. Guy smirked at him when Luke's back was turned, risking immediate strangulation... but it'd be a lot easier to indulge in petty amusement at Asch's frustration if it actually had any basis in reality and Luke wasn't thick like a pile of bricks.

God dammit.

Fandom/pairing: Tales of Vesperia; Rita/Estelle
Title/filename: Princess of my heart~ *was feeling ironic*
Current status: ~300 words; maybe 20%? orz
Spoilers: Not in this bit, at any rate.

“Hey… Estelle.”

Rita curled her hands into balls to try and stop them trembling. “This is the only grand gesture I’m going to make, okay? So if you want… I mean, you can just ignore it and we can forget it ever happened.”

Estelle blinked, looking around the room flickering in the glow of candlelight. “Rita?”

“Rita—”

“It doesn’t matter to me, okay?” Rita interrupted her, still staring down at their joined hands. “That you’re a princess. I don’t care about stuff like that. You could be a peasant girl and I’d still… still… Auugh!”

Fandom/pairing: Mirage of Blaze; Naoe/Takaya
Title/filename: Epic fix-it fic
Current status: *weeps* ~300 words of a billion? IDK. 0.001% or something. orz
Spoilers: None here, although obviously the fic itself will have extensive novel spoilers.

“The hell is wrong with me?” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “Spring break wasn’t that long.”

“Try asking what the hell isn’t wrong with you, it’d be quicker,” a voice drawled, and Takaya’s head shot up to meet Chiaki’s mocking grin. “Yo.”

Takaya gave him a long, hard stare, and tried not to examine the inexplicable feeling of relief he’d felt the moment he’d seen Chiaki’s face. If he was happy to see Chiaki, of all people, then there was definitely something wrong with him.

“Go bug someone else,” Takaya said sourly, and Chiaki just smirked, flipping a chair backward to straddle it. “Asshole.”

“Is that any way to greet a friend you haven’t seen for a whole month?” Chiaki asked rhetorically. “Cold, Ougi, very cold.”

Fandom/pairing: Mirage of Blaze (anime); Naoe/Takaya, various
Title/filename: Kanshousha Diaries
Current status: ~3000 words; got about halfway through the anime with it, but had no idea what to do about That End. (This was before I read the books, now I'm pretty sure I have even less idea what to do about THAT Ending. XD)
Spoilers: A little, maybe, but nothing anybody in MoB fandom wouldn't know already.

Naoe

Undead spirits being v. inconvenient. After four hundred years exorcism gets routine etc, so am quite put out that they feel the need to go interrupting time with Kagetora-sama. They're just going to get sent on anyway so do not know why they have to bother us in first place.

Saw Nagahide at Takaya-san's school. Suspect he is there to check out Takaya-san. Will kill him if he tries anything. Would still have Yuzuru-san, Kousaka and Haruie to worry about, however. Am quite annoyed. Why do people not understand Kagetora-sama MINE?

Still not laid, and is all the fault of Nagahide and ghosts.

Meme is in two parts because apparently my post is too big? What?