FLIST: COLLECT YOURSELVES YOUR GIFTS
So, who's the crazy person who has decided to give as many people on the flist a present as she can? I AM! *BEAMS* In the spirit of the new year and attempting to kick my ass back into action. I've taken what prompts you guys have given me over the last however-many-times-I-decided-to-click-previous-entries, and have spun what I can. Happy new year! ♥ from this side of the universe.
dnatio_memoriae generously donated her art skillz for a couple of these, and may be contributing more in the morning! IS THE WORLD NOT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE. OH YES, IT IS. ♥
Lucifer for numinicious . Lucifer. Sending someone a postcard from Perth, Australia. (I used the photo-prompt of the super-pretty sunset. Rise. Whatever!)
The image is burned onto the paper, or so it seems, and so it must be. The paper itself being heavy; a few hundred grams per square metre, no doubt, and cold pressed. Watercolours lie: they make things glow, give flatness life, and that's meant to be blasphemy in every language, something like typing YHWH YHWH YHWH on the keyboard while he idles the world away. Lucifer stares out into the sunset that he's made burn: every damned day this city writhes in oranges and calm, scientific reds. Fire in the sky, like a beacon. Fuck off, it reads.
He doesn't bother to fold the postcard into a paper plane, or anything even vaguely that human. He's not been that good an artist for a long while, in any case. That was Michael's prerogative. Lucifer just lets it fly on the wind, tossed towards the heavens with its imprint, like a good son writing home, or a prodigal.
Baccano! for dnatio_memoriae: Luck Gandor. Prompt: contemplating death (or, by implication, immortality). Correspondence: either longhand letter again or writing on the wall
These days he thinks about death by not thinking about it at all; perhaps he'd simply been a morbid youth, but now the world seems less dark. Conversely, there's too much brightness.
The young man thinks too much about death and misses all the moments of the world which, by virtue of being temporal, are precious. The man forever young thinks too much about living, and all the world reopens and the details crawl up the walls of Luck's mind.
Claire's the only one in the family with no sense of personal space: he charges into Luck's apartment during some visit during some year, looking older and absolutely the same. Blind people, Luck thinks, probably see Claire best. His brother reaches for the notebooks which he keeps on the shelves, all worn black covers and hand-stitched spines.
'You generate a lot of graffiti,' Claire comments, flipping through. There are pages and pages and pages worth of chicken scratches, one two three four five. 'What is this? Some new kind of poetry without words?'
Luck laughs.
'Something similar, if you consider counting the lights in Times Square an art.'
He watches them flicker to life: each year there are more, and none ever die out.
Final Fantasy VII for white_jenna: Tseng, medium: cocktail napkin," mixed drinks".
He doesn't care if you do it shaken or stirred or on the rocks; though that doesn't mean that he doesn't have standards, or that he doesn't know how it's all supposed to go. He's always there early. He'll order something flat. Tonic water plus. The "plus" differs from time to time. He'll sit. One elbow on the counter. Drink dangling from his fingertips. He's not ever careless. He watches them, one by one. He probably knows all their names. He probably knows our names, even if - especially because - we're just serving staff. We're the ones who watch him as he watches them - all royalty in Midgar: Shinra, Palmer, Heidegger, Tuesti. He doesn't have a last name, just a mind that I imagine works like a well oiled machine. Sometimes he has a pen in his hand, and he'll sit next to the stack of napkins and trace numbers, fingers, names, reasons, dates, and maybe because he's a Turk (whisper whisper) those other kinds of dates. Does he write epithets? Or is that out of the job description, beyond his kind of creativity?
I don't know. He leaves the napkins behind after tucking the pen away into his pocket. Does the same thing every single time, and whenever we look there's nothing there on the white three-ply sheets, not even impression marks.
By the time we realise we've been spending the night watching his fingers and not his face (which must have expressions the same way all men's do, right? Tend a bar for a fortnight and you'll understand), he'll be gone. And what's there for us to remember? A black suit, white cuffs, and the faint sound of ice, melting down into an untouched drink.
nasdack AU: Um, Tseng, Post-it note (If your feeling adventurous, in a bright neon color.) with the Prompt 'This is the absolute last time I...' I am a cheat! I am a cheat! I'm sorry, but I stalled out!
It's ridiculous and it's uncharacteristic of him if not her and it's beyond comprehension but Elena does it anyway. She's given up on getting much more out of Tseng than unparalleled freedom of movement, gender equality, constant pay scheme reviews and the occasional sideways smile - god, she'd die to be Rufus, or Balthier - but lust is lust, which is probably why his handwriting (angular, compact, unbearably neat, ballpoint black) on bright neon green post-it notes attached to her files still, somehow, manages to make her smile. This, she promises herself, is the absolute last time she'll keep the little sheets. It is. Absolutely. Yes.
Cowboy Bebop for knightlineninja: Spike and a short letter.
His letters to her were few, unstamped, unsent, and short. The first three characteristics were self-evident; the last, Spike only realised afterwards, carefully counting the pieces as they jetted off into space, white scraps against the black freedom of everything he loved, sans Julia.
Baccano! for voksen: Give me Czeslaw writing a letter, prompt... umm... bittersweet memories? :D OH VOKS YOU GIVE HARD PROMPTS. I include geeky math problems for you!
Czeslaw did not write sensible letters: who did he have to write to in the world? Then and now, it'd been the same. His was what everyone else called tragedy. At first he'd resented it - their pity; what did they, the unlearned they, know of the world? - but then he'd come to realisation, anagnorisis: here was his hubris - living forever in a child's body, and the thing shaped the person until he thought childlike thoughts. Let me die. Let me live forever. Let me survive. Let me let me let me until Czeslaw was sick of remembering the fading past and thinking of the unpredictable, unending future.
He wrote letters to no one.
Not true.
He wrote letters to Fermat, in maths, a last theorem that went on forever in his proofs and which would never, in its own way, ever be solved.
nasdack AU for logistika_nyx: Elena/Tseng, he's full of wishful thinking
He wants her to be something less young and less alive. Tseng looks at Elena and sees something unbroken; oh, he sees something alive in her. It makes him smile, which makes her flick her eyes to his lips, which makes him laugh, which makes her roll her eyes, point at Rufus' office, walk off in her Ferragamo pumps (bought with Bunansa money). They fucked her once, though not as roughly as that phrase gives: him and Rufus, in an attempt, one of Tseng's many attempts. He's full of wishful thinking, wondering at their likeness; she's blond, he's blonde, she's young, he's young, she's brave, and so is Rufus, but she's got more courage in her than Rufus will ever have, and more potential. Elena's not as smart, not as wealthy, not as tactical, not as political, not as interesting, but Tseng'll be the one to laugh if Rufus ever thinks to pity her. What does Rufus have behind him but burned bridges and bloodlines? Tseng's responsible, though not guilty, for some of Rufus' history, which is vast as it is complex as it is captivating as the man it keeps captive.
She's not him. Or he's not her. Were that he ever will be.
nasdack AU for misura: the exploits of Dark Nation
Dark Nation bled black fur all over Rufus' whitewashed, white-walled life. Chicago wasn't New York, which could've been monochrome and silent for all Rufus cared - his city was his own, and she was beautiful to him in ways that the Second City couldn't be. Chicago was wind and wind and howling silence, radio silence sometimes, and then static. School, work, email, a white leather couch so that comfort could be so cold. Rufus bought a cat to keep him company, then opened up his doors and watched Nation come back each time, accurate as prophecy.
If you feel you have been deprived a present, feel free to dump a prompt of any sort on me! After all, Chinese New Year (ha! coming from me, least traditional of people!) lasts a good long while, technically! :D Right now I am going to lean back in my seat and let my eyes explode for a while. ♥
dnatio_memoriae generously donated her art skillz for a couple of these, and may be contributing more in the morning! IS THE WORLD NOT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE. OH YES, IT IS. ♥
Lucifer for numinicious . Lucifer. Sending someone a postcard from Perth, Australia. (I used the photo-prompt of the super-pretty sunset. Rise. Whatever!)
The image is burned onto the paper, or so it seems, and so it must be. The paper itself being heavy; a few hundred grams per square metre, no doubt, and cold pressed. Watercolours lie: they make things glow, give flatness life, and that's meant to be blasphemy in every language, something like typing YHWH YHWH YHWH on the keyboard while he idles the world away. Lucifer stares out into the sunset that he's made burn: every damned day this city writhes in oranges and calm, scientific reds. Fire in the sky, like a beacon. Fuck off, it reads.
He doesn't bother to fold the postcard into a paper plane, or anything even vaguely that human. He's not been that good an artist for a long while, in any case. That was Michael's prerogative. Lucifer just lets it fly on the wind, tossed towards the heavens with its imprint, like a good son writing home, or a prodigal.
Baccano! for dnatio_memoriae: Luck Gandor. Prompt: contemplating death (or, by implication, immortality). Correspondence: either longhand letter again or writing on the wall
These days he thinks about death by not thinking about it at all; perhaps he'd simply been a morbid youth, but now the world seems less dark. Conversely, there's too much brightness.
The young man thinks too much about death and misses all the moments of the world which, by virtue of being temporal, are precious. The man forever young thinks too much about living, and all the world reopens and the details crawl up the walls of Luck's mind.
Claire's the only one in the family with no sense of personal space: he charges into Luck's apartment during some visit during some year, looking older and absolutely the same. Blind people, Luck thinks, probably see Claire best. His brother reaches for the notebooks which he keeps on the shelves, all worn black covers and hand-stitched spines.
'You generate a lot of graffiti,' Claire comments, flipping through. There are pages and pages and pages worth of chicken scratches, one two three four five. 'What is this? Some new kind of poetry without words?'
Luck laughs.
'Something similar, if you consider counting the lights in Times Square an art.'
He watches them flicker to life: each year there are more, and none ever die out.
Final Fantasy VII for white_jenna: Tseng, medium: cocktail napkin," mixed drinks".
He doesn't care if you do it shaken or stirred or on the rocks; though that doesn't mean that he doesn't have standards, or that he doesn't know how it's all supposed to go. He's always there early. He'll order something flat. Tonic water plus. The "plus" differs from time to time. He'll sit. One elbow on the counter. Drink dangling from his fingertips. He's not ever careless. He watches them, one by one. He probably knows all their names. He probably knows our names, even if - especially because - we're just serving staff. We're the ones who watch him as he watches them - all royalty in Midgar: Shinra, Palmer, Heidegger, Tuesti. He doesn't have a last name, just a mind that I imagine works like a well oiled machine. Sometimes he has a pen in his hand, and he'll sit next to the stack of napkins and trace numbers, fingers, names, reasons, dates, and maybe because he's a Turk (whisper whisper) those other kinds of dates. Does he write epithets? Or is that out of the job description, beyond his kind of creativity?
I don't know. He leaves the napkins behind after tucking the pen away into his pocket. Does the same thing every single time, and whenever we look there's nothing there on the white three-ply sheets, not even impression marks.
By the time we realise we've been spending the night watching his fingers and not his face (which must have expressions the same way all men's do, right? Tend a bar for a fortnight and you'll understand), he'll be gone. And what's there for us to remember? A black suit, white cuffs, and the faint sound of ice, melting down into an untouched drink.
nasdack AU: Um, Tseng, Post-it note (If your feeling adventurous, in a bright neon color.) with the Prompt 'This is the absolute last time I...' I am a cheat! I am a cheat! I'm sorry, but I stalled out!
It's ridiculous and it's uncharacteristic of him if not her and it's beyond comprehension but Elena does it anyway. She's given up on getting much more out of Tseng than unparalleled freedom of movement, gender equality, constant pay scheme reviews and the occasional sideways smile - god, she'd die to be Rufus, or Balthier - but lust is lust, which is probably why his handwriting (angular, compact, unbearably neat, ballpoint black) on bright neon green post-it notes attached to her files still, somehow, manages to make her smile. This, she promises herself, is the absolute last time she'll keep the little sheets. It is. Absolutely. Yes.
Cowboy Bebop for knightlineninja: Spike and a short letter.
His letters to her were few, unstamped, unsent, and short. The first three characteristics were self-evident; the last, Spike only realised afterwards, carefully counting the pieces as they jetted off into space, white scraps against the black freedom of everything he loved, sans Julia.
Baccano! for voksen: Give me Czeslaw writing a letter, prompt... umm... bittersweet memories? :D OH VOKS YOU GIVE HARD PROMPTS. I include geeky math problems for you!
Czeslaw did not write sensible letters: who did he have to write to in the world? Then and now, it'd been the same. His was what everyone else called tragedy. At first he'd resented it - their pity; what did they, the unlearned they, know of the world? - but then he'd come to realisation, anagnorisis: here was his hubris - living forever in a child's body, and the thing shaped the person until he thought childlike thoughts. Let me die. Let me live forever. Let me survive. Let me let me let me until Czeslaw was sick of remembering the fading past and thinking of the unpredictable, unending future.
He wrote letters to no one.
Not true.
He wrote letters to Fermat, in maths, a last theorem that went on forever in his proofs and which would never, in its own way, ever be solved.
nasdack AU for logistika_nyx: Elena/Tseng, he's full of wishful thinking
He wants her to be something less young and less alive. Tseng looks at Elena and sees something unbroken; oh, he sees something alive in her. It makes him smile, which makes her flick her eyes to his lips, which makes him laugh, which makes her roll her eyes, point at Rufus' office, walk off in her Ferragamo pumps (bought with Bunansa money). They fucked her once, though not as roughly as that phrase gives: him and Rufus, in an attempt, one of Tseng's many attempts. He's full of wishful thinking, wondering at their likeness; she's blond, he's blonde, she's young, he's young, she's brave, and so is Rufus, but she's got more courage in her than Rufus will ever have, and more potential. Elena's not as smart, not as wealthy, not as tactical, not as political, not as interesting, but Tseng'll be the one to laugh if Rufus ever thinks to pity her. What does Rufus have behind him but burned bridges and bloodlines? Tseng's responsible, though not guilty, for some of Rufus' history, which is vast as it is complex as it is captivating as the man it keeps captive.
She's not him. Or he's not her. Were that he ever will be.
nasdack AU for misura: the exploits of Dark Nation
Dark Nation bled black fur all over Rufus' whitewashed, white-walled life. Chicago wasn't New York, which could've been monochrome and silent for all Rufus cared - his city was his own, and she was beautiful to him in ways that the Second City couldn't be. Chicago was wind and wind and howling silence, radio silence sometimes, and then static. School, work, email, a white leather couch so that comfort could be so cold. Rufus bought a cat to keep him company, then opened up his doors and watched Nation come back each time, accurate as prophecy.
If you feel you have been deprived a present, feel free to dump a prompt of any sort on me! After all, Chinese New Year (ha! coming from me, least traditional of people!) lasts a good long while, technically! :D Right now I am going to lean back in my seat and let my eyes explode for a while. ♥