the lilulan empire

torchwood review

2009-07-11T10:45:09Z

Another first-post-in-a-long-time. Ahhhhh. Lovely. Well, here is a review of the latest miniseries of Torchwood, entitled Children of Earth, as written by Russell T Davies and a few other people, broadcast Monday the 6th of July to Friday the 10th of July, gaining ratings of up to 6.2 million and released on DVD on my birthday in two days, blah etc....

Well, I thought it was exquisite. Exquisite isn't a word I use very often, mainly because next to nothing on telly these days merits it - not even Doctor Who. But that did. That was shockingly good. I have maybe two relatively minor criticisms to make, so I'll get them out of the way first. Where did the 456 come from? All I remember on that topic was a passing comment by someone in the government along the lines of "They must have a base of operation in orbit". Were there any more 456 up there? If so, did they die too? Did the spaceship leave, or is it still in orbit? There wasn't quite enough tying up there. I'm all for unseen threats, and I can accept that showing the 456/their spaceship's fate in graphic detail wouldn't have worked, but surely Jack could have given an explanation... Also, we never saw what became of the 10% of other countries' children demanded by the 456. Did they also get rounded up? What cover stories were created by other governments? Again, I think too much elaboration on this matter would have stifled the tension, but a mention or two would have been appreciated.

Aside from that, I can find no faults in that brilliant five-hour drama that finally managed to feel like an adult Doctor Who spin-off and not just Doctor Who with gratuitous sex and gore. It dealt with the dark side of humanity in ways that even Midnight, my favourite episode of New Who, barely touched upon. I won't list them here because I actually don't want to dissect it and ruin the indefinable afterglow of that beautifully dark atmosphere. Most of the actors were exceptional, especially Peter Capaldi as Frobisher and John Barrowman as good old Jack. I've never liked Ianto that much, but I admit I loved him in these episodes. He finally became a person, rather than a coffee machine with in-built one-liners, and his acceptance of homosexuality was a realistic nuance in his (up until now) unrealistic relationship with Jack. His death even moved me, quite a bit.

I would give Children of Earth full marks, five stars, ten out of ten. It gave me a thrill that Doctor Who, to be honest, hasn't been giving me for quite some time - a thrill of real excitement, an atmosphere of real threat and danger. It's fun watching David Tennant walking on to the Planet of the Week, finding an alien that Shouldn't Even Exist, making unfunny lines about whatever tradition/situation/consumable fruit takes his fancy and snogging random women, but it's no match for real tension and real drama and not knowing what's about to happen.

Unless The Waters of Mars changes Doctor Who's game completely (which, from the preview clip, appears unlikely - Tennant's up to his old tricks) I'll be firmly of the opinion that Torchwood has risen head and shoulders above its parent in all respects. And that's quite an admission from me. :)

radio dreams

2009-05-13T16:32:41Z

Okay, so what's the excuse for not talking or posting this time around? Well, it's the band. As I hoped last post, the band has broadened from a one-off, thrown-together concert thing to being a full-time job, pretty much (except without the money XD). A few weeks of frenzied writing, singing and practising later, and our first album is ready to be recorded. 'Tis called Radio Dreams, and it has nothing in the way of actual music, covers or physical CD-ness yet. All it does have is a tracklist and the lyrics, which I shall put here now for people's enjoyment. Some of the songs have already been posted on here (such as The Purple in the Eye, The Painted Man and Crystal Scream), but I shall post them here anyway.

Ludicrous, silly and probably unncecessary warning, but a warning nonetheless: If our band somehow starts playing outside of school concerts and in members' garages, and becomes a proper, money-making band, then I shall have to take these lyrics down. Yes, it is a very silly idea, as the thought of professional recording has not once crossed my head, and the album is purely a little friendly project born out of pre-exam anxiety, but if it should ever happen...

Radio Dreams

Tracklist with Comments

1) The Purple in the Eye
A strange, science-fiction narrative song about the world going wrong in tiny, mostly unnoticeable ways. I've talked about it extensively previously on this blog, so go there if you want to read about it. I don't want to repeat myself too much here...!

2) Radio Dreams
My personal favourite song on the album, and thus the titular one. I'm not entirely sure what it's about, although I've got a feeling it was subconsciously inspired by a certain TV programme - see if you can guess which one. It's a shame that I can't give any kind of indication as to the main riff of this song, because the riff is really what makes it good. It's very quirky and happy, in a way that directly contradicts the lyrics. This was my intention...

3) The Painted Man
Again, I have mentioned this piece earlier on the blog, so I won't go into much detail. In short, it is a surreal poem that has a deeper meaning concerning God and why I, personally, don't believe in him. But interpret it how you want - it's not for me to tell anyone how to read anything.

4) Shiradur Side
A deliberately short, energetic piece describing in song form a battle scene I wrote in a story ages ago, in the rhythm and rhyme pattern of GK Chesterton's epic poem Lepanto. It's not the best song, definitely, but I quite like its snappiness.

5) Soliloquy on Causality
A pretty much botched Valentine's present for my girlfriend, now turned into a song. After my intimate gift turned into a nonsensical, quasi-Shakespearian sci-fi rant, I went back and wrote a more romantic poem, which is now track ten - You and Me. It's still not exactly happy love bunnies, though.

6) Crystal Scream
The last recycled poem, I promise! It's a short, doom-filled scenario that, along with track eleven - The Pendulum Sky, inspired me to write my NaNoWriMo novel, The Pendulum Sky. My titles are so original.

7) Nothing Beyond the Suburbs
I'm particularly proud of this one. It's (to quote Firefly) morbid and creepifying - moreso than anything I've ever written before. It also has a resounding botanical error that may drag people out of the poem's atmosphere, sadly - and one that I now can't change, due to the song's very specific rhythm structure. It wouldn't take a plant expert to notice it, either.

8) A Thing Someday
A nice little monologue lifted from my story "Aeon War" and placed in a song where it can really shine. I won't reveal the identity of the speaker for spoiler reasons.

9) The Man
First The Painted Man, and now The Man. Place your bets on whether my next poem will be titled "The" or "Man". Erm, yes... this is a short, slightly weird attempt to songify (and personify!) some of my strongest political beliefs concerning hysteria and paranoia. Both of which are currently very active because of this oh-my-god-the-world's-gonna-end swine flu farce. My school is now closed due to one boy getting an illness that's less infectious than normal flu, and far less threatening. Thank you, government.

10) You and Me
Lovely, cheerful and romantic. No. Just kidding. It's depressing and emo.

11) The Pendulum Sky
This song shares a title and a plot with my novel The Pendulum Sky - so basically it's the song version. That said, it's actually very different in tone. The Pendulum Sky the novel is very offbeat and bizarre, whereas this is rhythmical and oddly comforting. I think.

12) Sunlit Sea (Lilulan Anthem)
My second favourite song here. The tune to this has been stuck in my head since I was six and since I first thought up the world of Lilula and its main characters. As with Radio Dreams, the riff is everything, so the lyrics will undoubtedly seem a bit stark on their own, but never mind - it's still fairly rousing and suitably conclusive.

Tracks

1) The Purple in the Eye

It started slowly, oh so slowly
Blackness on the edges of the street
Purple in the corner of the eye
Slowly rising, building ahead
Clear behind, but don't look back

Travellin' down, like an arrow like a string
Clear behind, never lookin' back
At the bins and the grease and the brick-flesh walls
Never look there, the purple mist in the bins and the grease
The purple in the eye

The colours, they say, the colours are the key
But they never look back
Look left for the cars, look right for the cars
Not at the cars with the purple and black
On the bonnet and the back
In the window, and the sun is slack
In a warm and brittle sky
With a tinge of purple
The purple in the eye

Slowly it got into everyone
Didn't know how and didn't know why
The purple in the eye was everyone's eye
And nobody knew, and body went by

More mist on the street on a clouded dawn
No sheep on the reddened mountain field
No silkworms on the edges of barns
Stripping away, the ocean hells
And more yellow and green
And red and blue blocks
In the pool of balls
The purple in the eye

Don't look back, never look back
'Cause the way is clear and the way was clear
Do not tarry, whatever happens, my friend
Do not hurry, but arrow along
'Cause the way is clear and the way was clear
And the sun is shinin', it's a lovely day

But slowly, slowly, it was going wrong
And the day was long
And no songs were sung
And the sun hung like a block on the sky
And body went by
And body went by
Smiles hung in place, just a crease, just a thing
Hung on the face
For public viewing
And the sun was like a block that never gave
Little lover pools of candlelight
In the reservoirs of the moon

Slowly, oh so slowly, things went wrong
And over the long
Grey scrawl of the sea
In a waxwork country incandescent as the moon
Where blue glass rises
In reefs from the ground
And the sky is like a tiger, that wanders round
And the stars are silent
As flashes in the black

The last of the thinkers, gathered across the night
The blast and the fallen, seeing it all right

Fires and wavelengths, never any joy

The last of the blinkers, gathered across the night
The blast and the fallen, seeing it all right

No hope for the rest

2) Radio Dreams

Radio playing somewhere
Walking through the fallen hues
Nowhere to go and nowhere to think
Bloody things just have to exist

Damn that seventies music
Damn the cornershop selling smoke
Don't care for these surroundings
I will walk until they stop

A frenzy of determination
You don't like that I won't stay
No matter what your lips are saying
I will always walk away

This world, it doesn't like me
I'm cringing in a colourful stream
I fall asleep as you drink your coffee
I rise in red and purple from a dream

Radio playing somewhere
Walking through the fallen hues
Nowhere to go and nowhere to think
Bloody things just have to exist

Radio playing somewhere
Walking through the fallen hues
Nowhere to go and nowhere to think
Bloody things just have to exist

3) The Painted Man

The satellites look down on us, they smile in high lands
They know how we live, and they know how we die
They're angels in a heaven of the dark
They know that, somewhere in the purple night,
Somewhere under nebula-fire there stands a painted man
His prismatic eyes look into the stars and see the swelling of the light
The dying of the light, the conception of the light, the story of the light.

The painted man; he stands like a cut-out
Grinning as worlds tear asunder, grinning as love falls
Grinning at Spiritus Versi, grinning in the candlelight
The painted man is luminance, the painted man is God.

The painted man's face ripping on the wind of dancing dusts
The painted man is swimming in the wild of every world
The painted man! He'll be there when the angels begin to fall
And his prismatic eyes'll see into nothingness, the blind void

The painted man is atoms, he becomes them as he goes
His shadow is a longing line of grey upon the grey
And his shoulders shine in the framework of the sun
And his eyes glow brightest when the space-night's near

The house that is behind him is brown and white and red
And its windows never open, and its shutters never close
And there are people inside it, in the clockwork house
And the ceilings of the rooms are forged of faded time
And the floor is made of ancient hate, strong and long and pale

Miranda and the diamonds stare out the lonely folds
The darkest cracks, the wind and rain
And the storm falls heavy on the night bright light
And she cannot see the painted man, she only sees the blight.

He stands as vigilant as the unreal mountains behind, ahead, behind
He cannot let the clock turn back, he cannot leap away
And his eyes blaze fire, fire that grows and burns and sticks
And his grin is constant as the sun, as shrill as paper screams

His grin drops only when the stars begin to fall
It's coming, in the wounded light
It's coming, in the lonely hells
And the painted man steps forward
And the shadow folds away
And the house is left alone
And is blinded by the day.

4) Shiradur Side

Dark and deathless they rush downward to the edges of the lake
Brave and breathless they rush upward to the shadow of the snake
Shiradur stirs, its sharp blue tides roar
And they rise and fall like monoliths in orange morning light
And the enemy’s obscurance by the leaping, soaring tides
Causes hope and fear and battle to be kindled at the sides

The snake cascading wayward as run through by butterflies
And light falls steeply downward and the darkness quickly dies
And battle pulsates, and war screams high
And the air fills with brittle laughs and slicing gaps of speed
The mountains rear around them in the framework of the sun
Shutting off the other world, enclosing everyone

5) Soliloquy on Causality

One thing starts another like a ladder
Whose celestial climber's crawling to the top:
One thing starts another like the ripples in the sea
Of eternity - why will it never stop?

I wish my movements never resonated;
I wish my verbal clamourings would spin
In space, suspended in the blissful blankness
Of no causes, and no reasons, and no sin.

But is time's very nature not to cause
And to be caused: to be, and to make be?
No! Time is but a measurement of change:
There would be change, but nobody would see.

I wish the causal nexus would erode,
And one day would stop bothering us men,
So we could walk through atoms still as glass,
And finally live: then, and only then.

That still air strewn with cold, unmoving fires!
And naked men and women passing through,
Flowing in great thought-streams to their homes
To witness, side by side, the old and new.

6) Crystal Scream

From the quivering heart of crystal
A scream from every chasm
Rending ribbons
Twining rage
A mouth closed by twisted, slathered strings of pain

The eyeless face of the mountain darkens with fire
Which silently spreads
Dragonfly of death
Arching like a wave crest
As if pulled down by creaking hands
It treads the sky, towards the land

Over a crackled bed of steam
Leaps the stag
A quaking roar of surprise
Racing across a scarred world
Liquid legs
The crushing blackness glinting in its eyes
Leaves caught up in the imploding wind
Red skeletons of light as they burn

Heaven a divided, clashing maw
Silence
Save for the glass whisper of oceans rising
Becoming a bronze cry, a shudder in the ribs of the horizon

The stag sucked to the ground
Legs folding, trembling, a lonely call
Glimmering onset of sky and ice and fire
The stag's weathered head bows
The groan of heaving flesh
The rumble as it cracks
The red flash in the fallen dark

7) Nothing Beyond the Suburbs

At the end of the day in a small town
Stars rise in half a dozen eyes
Out on a hill that sits in the dark
Clinging to the earth on quiet ground

But what is out there?
Beyond the hill
Beyond the stars that we see from our door
What is beyond the suburbs?
In the dark space
Beyond the broken bicycle wheels
Beyond the countless butterfly bones

The tramlines end, the birds don’t fly
The land is swallowed by the sky
There’s nothing beyond the suburbs

Six of us sat with the old champagne
Chatter on a brown memorial bench
There’s nothing else beside ourselves
And a champagne cellar
And nothing beyond the suburbs

My house is grey, of faded paint
Chrysanthemum upon the walls
Kettles boil and water flows
But there’s no furniture
And I don’t know what’s in the cupboards
Don’t care for these surroundings
My room is far away

I sit upon the gate alone
And faith and reason both defy
I look into the starlit void
And ask myself, how did they die?

Many people once were here
We all know but we never ask
I feel their presence in my mind
Their faded voices in the walls

Is there really nothing beyond the suburbs?

I sit upon my bed and think
For tiny moments that I hear
From distant times
The sound of thunder in a shuttered room
There’s nothing beyond the suburbs

Now it’s just me, and my five men
But we will all grow old one day
And when we die, we’ll leave this town
With silence stealing our champagne
Taking our places on the bench

My old chrysanthemum will thrive
Watered by the rain that still
Will fall upon an empty town
Upon an empty little hill

8) A Thing Someday

I lay in the Nothing before time began
Thinking I’d build a thing someday
A thing, a world, a sun, a breath
Of life in the stale Nothing of eternity

I thought I was so old, I was so young
I now lie on a sofa, a laugh in my lung
Smirks and smiles, all falsities really
Watching a world come down around me

I fight for something I can’t reach
The starting point is far behind me
Even if I somehow leech
The last of life from all around me
I’ll still continually feel
Through many years of darkened time
Everything that once was real
Pressing down upon my mind
When I’m back in silent black
I’ll think about the age of men
I’ll never get my freedom back
It’s useless starting from the end

I lay in the Nothing before time began
Thinking I’d build a thing someday
A thing, a world, a sun, a breath
Of life in the stale Nothing of eternity

9) The Man

People are going to the city once again
To buy themselves chocolate, coins, fares
People are driving to the homelands once again
To eat the chocolate, spend the coins, fares

Red stickers on the water float
Blue stickers on the bus, obscure the sky
White blocks rising, roaring from the air
Towers, more stickers, red-blue-white

Greyscale piling coils and coins
Sheets of paper loose in bags,
Leaning in the wind on brick, not flesh
Driving the city slowly mad

The Man is everywhere, in the wind and rain
He lands in boiling paper bags,
He sits on the corner of the street and shouts
In the mind, down and down in the dark,
He goes walking, round and round
In the frontal lobes
And he talks and he digs
And he stalks and he rides
The tides of the river
At the edge of the mind.

People are piling from the city once again
They’ve read all the billboards and the papers
People are settling into darkness once again
Someone else will deal with it later

10) You and Me

A smile is just a thing
Hung on the face for public viewing
In the red light a smile is the future
Twisted in so many ways

The room with the yellow carpet
Yellow carpet soft and numb
So many carpets and smiles to come
In the light of one brown eye

The emptiness, the hollowness
Shadow passing along the grey back of a car seat
Over and over, eyes numb and tired
From the three o’clock start
Candlelit fields flash by and by
A passing glimpse of a hollow world
Thinking of smiles and eyes to come
Chest pinned by a grey seatbelt
Eyes lidded against the car
Catching snatches of a candlelit life

It’s here again, but it’s not the same
Yellow eclipsed by the pounding rain
The street outside awash with cars
Fingers limited, dealing cards
Brown eye soft against the pain
Never gonna be the same again

So many ways to reach the ending
Smiles and eyes all disappearing
Missed chances and awkward glimpses
In the darkness of an eye

11) The Pendulum Sky

Once, once, once, never twice, never thrice
The pendulum sky leaves gashes in the air
Silver glint, not a soul in sight, the pendulum sky
Slashes the air, the long lifetimes

Passing by like dust in the wind, like dust
In the fold in the sand
Timer held to the sky, the pendulum sky
And they know nothing ever, not ever, not once
‘Bout the shark in the green lime loneliness
Lonely shark in the warm abyss
Glowing stars measured out by the pendulum sky

They rust and they fall and so does the sky
The sky with no pendulums, no pendulum sky
And for while and for why? they rest as they die
The pendulums sink and the pendulums cry

Moving on like dust in the wind, like dust
In the fold in the sand
Timer held to the sky, the pendulum sky
Once upon a time the pendulums swung
And the world ascended to the second rung
And the pendulums died and the pendulums cried
But they measured their time, and their time was up
As the sky exploded in a sand timer cup

12) Sunlit Sea (Lilulan Anthem)

O darkling oceans long and grey
Go rising in a sunlit day

The wave crests nod and turn around
In swirling waters ever bound
Towards the sunlit sea

Beyond the shores of sunlit sea
Sunradin
Sunradin

O darkling oceans long and grey
Defeated by a sunlit day
Sunradin
Sunradin

my words are written in the sand

2009-04-15T20:08:14Z

"I'll be back later today to talk about the aforementioned stuff and chat with people for the first time in ages" - my mouth, previous entry. Erm, yeah, obviously I underestimated my tiredness and found myself practically paralysed in bed with books for several days after I said that. It happens. I am actually fully back now, and shall prove it by explaining the title of this entry: it is a line from St Thomas's rather beautiful song "Like the Byrds". It is also an attention-grabbing title. And I am a big ol' attention seeker.

Three (four now!) weeks of news. Right, let me start with the "The Purple in the Eye" concert performance. It was absolutely incredible, and I mean that in a wholly enthusiastic, rabid way and not in the trivial way that I have used "incredible" in the past. It was one of the best experiences of my life so far, no doubt about it.

Of course, I was worried beforehand, worried sick, as described in rather angsty detail two entries back. The worry proved to be unjustified, as I predicted in the same entry. This was for two main reasons: the first being the fact that my parents and an uncle and many many friends turned up completely unexpectedly an hour before the performance and gave me Useful Moral Support and jumped like sharks onto the row of chairs closest to the stage, and the second being the comment somebody made about the song as I left the hall: "That was a well safe song." Under normal circumstances, I would have been annoyed at that person for using such modern, chavvy, irritating language. Instead, I was grateful and ecstatic that someone liked it and thought it was good. Apart from that remark, I really don't know how the song went down, so I'm treasuring it.

Overall - I sang the best I've done in my life, my friends did justice to my work, my family were there, and at least one person liked it. Awesomesauce. I wish someone had taped the performance on something other than a listen-only CD thingy, as it would have been something I'd be pleased to share with everyone on LJ and elsewhere. Oh well. Next time! (Yes, as a band, we're thinking of doing more songs, which is about the most exciting prospect ever.)

In other news: I have come up with another massive project. Yes, another one. (Don't think I can't hear you groan.) It's probably my wackiest yet: it concerns two psychopaths who flee from a sinister mental treatment ward in a tatty old zeppelin and find themselves in a strange and very creepy world of quantum physics and lots of violence. Perfectly sane, of course.

Talking to people will happen when both I and all the people I wish to talk to are online. Hopefully that will be soon. :)

hello again

2009-04-07T08:57:34Z

Yes. That may have been a gap in LJ usage - in fact, plain computer usage - for three weeks or so. Give or take. Why? Because, while arriving in France for the very first time since last summer, my suitcase got lost. The baggage reclaim conveyor belt thingy whose proper name I can't recall kept turning and chugging, but just couldn't bring itself to vomit up my bag. And then it stopped. Everyone else had gone, and I was quite frightened, mostly for my computer, but also for all the DVDs and books I had in there. Especially Firefly.

Three weeks on holiday ~~without Firefly~~ without a word processor! It was a nightmare for me, but I got through it. As it turned out, the bag never left England and we had to pick it up when we returned. Tis all over, thank somebody. Well, apart from the internet and writing mess I have to clean up. Priority one: talk to people whom I haven't talked to for three weeks (or more). Priority two: Write three weeks' worth of ideas. Priority three: Sleep. I lost much of it thinking about my baggage. Priority four: update my journal with news of the "The Purple in the Eye" performance that I talked about ages ago.

It seems like priority four is going to be done first, seeing as I'm on LJ.

Actually, no - I'm yawning - priority three is. I'll be back later today to talk about the aforementioned stuff and chat with people for the first time in ages. I shall now nod off. *nods off*

stage fright

2009-03-15T19:37:49Z

What have I done?!

The answer is that I have formed a temporary bandy thing with a few friends, have given them the "The Purple in the Eye" music to practice and we're performing it at the school concert on Friday, with myself singing (usually I play drums, but no-one else knows the words and tune well enough to sing the piece, so I have to!...) Oh dear me.

I am terrified. I have never sung something in front of nearly a thousand people before. Oh dear. Oh no. Other phrases beginning with "oh". I have an okay voice, I suppose, but can it fill the entire thousand-person hall? Yeah, alright, I'll have a microphone, but argh! Singers are always at the front of bands when they perform, so my friends will feel far away, and all those people will seem close... all listening, each and every one of those thousand people judging me.

I am scared witless. Is the song too weird and sci-fi and cultish to be sung at a mainstream school concert? Do the constantly changing tune and multiple riffs make it too disjointed?

And the thing is, it'll probably be an amazing, enjoyable experience, and I know it... but my mind just can't get its weird lobey tentacley brain-things round that concept. I'm still scared.

I think I shall watch some more Firefly now. It is the only thing comforting me. I love that programme.

since i found serenity

2009-03-08T21:57:43Z

I have a somewhat blasphemous and life-changing statement to make: Doctor Who is no longer my favourite television programme.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've finally started watching a series called Firefly. Yes, 'tis true, I bought the DVD a few weeks ago after several years of thinking it looked shiny and "right up my street" as they say these days. And now I've fallen completely in love.

I think that's because of the characters of Firefly - that small, believable, tight-knit family of characters. I like Torchwood and Lost for the same reason, but Firefly's sense of family blows those two out of the water. It's lovely and somehow cosy, despite the constant danger, to watch the characters interact, episode after episode, in the same space, under similar circumstances.

Of course, the plots are excellent, but don't matter to me as much as the characters. Oh, the characters! *character-gasm* The mysterious, deadpan Mal, the intense Zoe and her whimsical husband Wash, the Tam siblings with their trauma-shot relationship, gruff, quirky Jayne, elegant Inara and sweet little Kaylee... *second character-gasm* All so brilliantly drawn.

I'm a newbie to this fandom so I don't know the exact story of how Firefly came to be cancelled, but whoever did it, well, they deserve death by engine (as iconed, and demonstrated here - if you've never watched Firefly before then this would be a good place to start soaking in its awesomeness.)

That's an 11/10 and a recommendation to everyone on my friends list, by the way. :)

the long-forgotten sekrit project!

2009-03-02T07:54:58Z

I haven't been making too much progress with the sekrit project what with all the Timey rewriting I've been doing. I'm now back on track, and I think I've just written some of my best stuff yet for it. Just thought ~~nobody~~ people would like to know that I have not abandoned it. It's coming.

Meanwhile, I've also been writing a kids' fable about the importance of the apostrophe in today's society, having been driven completely round the bend a couple of days ago by looking at the outrageously punctuated and spelt Facebook pages of some of my friends. Look out for that soon as well.

Final bit of news - I've discovered an incredible new style of icon-making thanks to playing around on Corel Paint Shop for about two hours (what? I had nothing to do that afternoon!...) and have since used it to make the Who icon I'm using now. It looks lovely and smooth and saturated with colour to me, compared to my previous efforts, though I expect I shall be laughing at it after another few hours of iconing.

Really, final bit of news this time: I've started watching Firefly at last. It's better than sex.

carmelita

2009-02-22T16:47:44Z

Here come the memes, doo doo dooo... I SAY!

The Meme Where You Interview People and They Interview You Back

1. Leave me a comment saying, 'interview me'.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions. (You must do this, even if it's filtered for my eyes only!)
4. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are my questions, received from para_dee, cookiesofkarmaand tragic_outrage. In that order.

1) What do you enjoy most about writing?

That is a hard one. There are many many things I enjoy about it - the fact that you can do anything you want without restrictions or guidelines, the way writing can be a wonderful escape from real life, the times when my writing is criticised and/or praised... However, I think my favourite thing about writing has to be when I reach a natural climax or otherwise exciting bit in my story and I think to myself "I love this bit" and, fuelled by my own excitement and self-praise, the writing flows and sings. That, and when I introduce two-foot, blind, pearl-encrusted, ageist crabs who roll around in lampshades for kicks.

2) What is your favourite type of cake?

Fairy cakes for their lightness and biteability and their relation to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I also like traditional jam sponges.

3) If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Argh, that would be hell and would drive me totally mad! XD But I suppose, if it was imperative that I choose one song to go mad to, I'd go mad to either Heroes, Life on Mars? or Starman, simply because David Bowie has a mad voice and they all have mad lyrics and they're all very interesting and enjoyable and long, so there would be a bit of variation for a few weeks.

4) What is the funniest thing that's ever happened to you during an otherwise mundane event (like a shopping trip)?

I was walking down Richmond High Street with my friend Gabriel (probably doing either window-shopping or actual shopping - I don't remember much about the occasion apart from the actual weird bit) when a big flash of yellowy-brown caught my eye. I looked up from the pavement to see... well, two pies. Two six-foot wide, six-foot high, circular meat pies. Walking up the other side of the street on two little human legs. They were lumbering like the giant pastries they were through a bustling crowd. None of the members of this crowd seemed to notice them, really. The crowd scattered, sure, but none of them stopped to question the absurdity of this sight. I cracked up - not only because of the pies, but because of the utter peculiarity of the condition of the street and its crowd - everyone locked in a little insular world, chatting on phones and carrying bags, not noticing two gigantic pies walking by.

5) Elephant on a trampoline, or a bear on a pogo stick?

Bear on a pogo stick, definitely. I don't like elephants much, and I love bears. They always look so simple and earnest in photographs. A bouncing bear! That would be hypnotic and very squeeful.

1) If you were given control of the universe, what would you do?

First of all, I would prove to everyone that Saturn doesn't exist by temporarily moving the Earth to the location where Saturn is believed to be. Then I would kill Al Gore for spreading false rumours about climate change. Then I would make myself the Evol Ruler of the Universe and drag Earth around behind me on a chain.

2) Bananas or pineapples?

Pineapples: they're spiky, juicy and they have a lot of attitude. I do like bananas too. Just not as much.

3) Your favourite fictional character would be...?

That's the hardest one so far, I would say. I love so many fictional characters! I shall have to list a few, as I just can’t leave some out. Nasty question. D: Gollum from Lord of the Rings would be an obvious choice, as he was probably the character who inspired me to become a writer with his treacherous, sneaky, fishy ways. Vyrrch from The Braided Path trilogy would definitely make the shortlist. He’s a nasty piece of work, but so brilliantly written by Chris Wooding that you kind of see where he’s coming from. Plus he kills little kids and animals for fun. There’d be a whole lot of characters from works I’ve read recently, such as Pi from Life of Pi, Ginny from City at the End of Time, Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Marv from the Sin City graphic novel series, and numerous others. I think the ultimate prize would, however, have to go to Mogget from the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix. He’s the ultimate in fictional cats – he’s never quite what he seems, never quite means what he says, and every bone in his body is sarcastic and ironic. I think, if cats could talk, they’d be like him. Wow. Long answer. Sorry.

4) If you were a girl, what would you like to be called?

Mya, Maya, Mia or another variant thereof. I’ve always loved that name: it’s simple but poetic, exotic but down-to-earth. I also wouldn’t mind Hayley or Abby. It’s beginning to look like I think regularly about this, isn’t it? XD

5) What would you do if you were damned to eternal life as a ghost?

Sit in a cardboard box on the platform of a train station and jump out at people, making woo-woo-weeee noises. That would be quite amusing, I should imagine, to my ghostly sense of humour. Alternatively, I would hang round the heads of people I knew in my mortal life and make snarky comments about the quality of their life and how much sugar they put in their coffee, etc.

1) Who is your favourite Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy character, and why?

Ford Prefect, because he is so quietly, reliably witty, and he's always the most hilariously calm and ironic in dangerous situations. Tied for second place would be the Man in the Shack, as he is a fantastic parody of God and religion, and Marvin. Who doesn't love Marvin?

2) Coffee or tea?

Tea! *posh accent* It is so quintessentially British. Also, coffee makes me hyper, and I try to avoid that at all costs.

3) If your house became an inferno, and you could save only one personal possession, what would it be?

I'd love to say something like the little cushion my mum knitted for me when I was three, or the cat statuettes my girlfriend gave me for our first Christmas together. However, I would probably get my computer, for it has all my writing on it. XD So much for sentimentality.

4) Do you have a phobia? If you do, what is it and how did it come about?

Wasps. I don't mind spiders, but I just can't stand wasps. They can fly! Spiders just crawl. And most spiders don't sting you. The phobia probably rose from the hornet my mum says visited me in my cot just after I was born. If there's anything I hate more than wasps, it's hornets. Argh! They're massive wasps with massive glinty eyes! *froth*

5) Bumcake or cumbake?

If it was a nice girl in question, then bumcake, cause nice girl's bum must taste nice. But I'd rather eat an old nasty person's cum than their actual flesh, so cumbake in that scenario. Overall I think bumcake No comment.

The Meme Where I Answer Questions With the Titles of Songs by Artist X

1. Choose a singer/band/group.
2. Answer the questions using only titles of songs by that singer/band/group.
3. Tag more people (let them know they've been tagged).

Let Artist X be the wonderful St Thomas, aka. Thomas Hansen.

1) Are you male or female?
Twisted Cowboy.

2) Describe yourself.
An Artist With a Brilliant Disguise.

3) What do people feel when they're around you?
Waltzing Around Insane.

4) How would you describe your previous relationship? (N.B. I've only had one, so it's the same one as in the next question.)
Everything Was Up For a Romance.

5) Describe your current relationship.
Let's Grow Together.

6) Where do you want to be right now?
I'm Coming Home.

7) How do you feel about love?
Oh I Have Left the Ground.

8) What's your life like?
Like a Big Time.

9) What would you ask for if you only had one wish?
Sunny Day.

10) Say something wise.
You May Find a Treasure Everywhere.

Wow, that was surprisingly easy! I suppose that's thanks to St Thomas's wacky titles. For taggage, I tag anyone who reads this and hasn't yet done it. Now for a rather strange meme.

The Meme Where You Put Your Songs on Shuffle and Answer Questions With The Titles You Get

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle mode.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. Write that song title as your answer, no matter how silly it sounds.
4. Any comments should be written after the song title ~~in italics~~ in brackets. 'Cause brackets pwn italics.

1) If someone says "Is this okay?", what do you say?
Sunny Day - St Thomas.
("I'm trying to choose a job. Is this okay?" "SUNNY DAY!11111one!)

2) How would you describe yourself?
Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens.
(Waaaah. How come everyone else's made some kind of sense?)

3) What do you like in a girl?
The Charity Ego - St Thomas.
(So I like charitable girls. It makes sense, celebrate! And by the way, the question originally said "What do you like in a boy?" but I changed it. *shifty eyes*)

4) How do you feel today?
Rote - Neotropic.
(Oh dear. I think that means "roast" in French.)

5) What is your life's purpose?
He's Frank - Brighton Port Authority featuring Iggy Pop.
(So the purpose of my life is to be honest. Or to change my name to Frank. One of those.)

6) What is your motto?
A Nice Bottle of Wine - St Thomas.
(I'm an alcoholic. And why is the shuffle picking on St Thomas?)

7) What do your friends think of you?
Nine in the Afternoon - Panic at the Disco.
(Well, erm, indeed.)

8) What do you think of your parents?
Political World - Bob Dylan.
(Ah, they're politicians! This explains a lot.)

9) What do you think about often?
If Everyone Was Listening - Supertramp.
(That's actually quite accurate - I can often be self-conscious and paranoid. I'm just glad A Nice Bottle of Wine didn't come up again.)

10) What is two plus two?
Cleaning Windows - Van Morrison.
(Yes, window cleaners often don't know the answer to that question.)

11) What do you think of your best friend?
Jesus - Cat Stevens.
(Ahahaha. I'm not sure whether he'd take that as a compliment or an insult, as he is v. atheistic...)

12) What do you think of the person you like?
Necromancer - Gnarls Barkley.
(AHAHAHAHAHA. It gets better and better!)

13) What is your life story?
I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs.
(No, I'm afraid the Shuffle God has got it wrong: my life has been very peaceful so far.)

14) What are you going to be when you grow up?
Rose in Peril - Murray Gold.
(Great. I'm going to be in mortal danger, and, to add insult to injury, I'm going to have a sex change.)

15) What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Bright Side of the Road - Van Morrison.
(Ah, good, I think that makes up for earlier.)

16) What will you dance to at your wedding?
Strange Days - The Doors.
(Hmmm. Strange in a good way, or strange in a bad way?)

17) What will be played at your funeral?
Andy Warhol - David Bowie.
(*cries*)

18) What is your hobby/interest?
Coney Island - Van Morrison.
(I don't even know where that is!)

19) What is your biggest fear?
Under African Skies - Paul Simon.
(I'm either agoraphobic or racist. Or both. Wonderful.)

20) What is your biggest secret?
Ring Them Bells - Bob Dylan.
(Yes, I keep them under my bed.)

21) What do you think of your friends?
The Dead Marshes - Howard Shore.
(Sorry guys and girls! Evil shuffle.)

22) What will you post this as?
Carmelita - Warren Zevon.
(That'll turn heads.)

The One Where You Tick Books You've Read Off a List

Stealed, copied and pasted from someone on my friend-list. I'm pretty sure it was sophiaofwolven. *checks* Yes, it was. :) And I can't be bothered to delete the "I don't know who it was". Ah. On with the memeage.

The BBC allegedly believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here:
How do your reading habits stack up? Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

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 – Lots of Crackhead Priests
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - 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 - William 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
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
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

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
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

Crappage. XD I've read 53 of them entirely. That's one off my favourite number, 54 - typical. Right, well now you know I am a saddo literature-geek, let us move on to the musical writing humiliation.

The One Where You Write a Song Using First Lines of Shuffled Songs

1. Turn on your music player's shuffle mode.
2. Write down the first lines of the first twenty songs you get.
3. Re-arrange the twenty lines however you see fit.
4. The first line of the twenty-first song is the title.
5. At the end, write down which songs you used.

She Tells Him She Thinks She Needs to Be Free

In the evening, when the day is done

As long as I walk with you I think I can be safe

Come over to the window, my little darling

As you brush your shoes, stand before the mirror

And all my love come down

She moves like an angel and seven evening stars

Hey, lady, you got the love I need

I love, I love, I’m ready to love yes

Well it’s time honoured tradition

Ooh, baby, don’t you know I suffer?

I feel for the driver in the aftermath

Summer didn’t stay for long

You can make out pretty good when you’re on your own

I’ll watch myself as I’m moving careful

Homeless, homeless

And so the story goes

Oh no, it’s never gonna happen

Oh don’t say those same idle lies

I got a monster in my closet

Sleep Maya, you’re in ancient hands

1) In the Evening – Led Zeppelin

2) Walk With Me – St Thomas

3) So Long, Marianne – Leonard Cohen

4) Wild Night – Van Morrison

5) Listen to the Lion – Van Morrison
6) Angelsea – Cat Stevens

7) Over the Hills and Far Away – Led Zeppelin

8) Ready – Cat Stevens

9) Time Honoured Tradition – Kaiser Chiefs

10) Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
11) For the Driver – Ron Sexsmith

12) Raissa – Endegy
13) Gypsy – Van Morrison

14) The Charity Ego – St Thomas

15) Homeless – Paul Simon

16) The Bewlay Brothers – David Bowie

17) Cowboy, Cowgirl, Moviestar, Moviestar – St Thomas

18) A Bad Penny – Cat Stevens

19) The Boogie Monster – Gnarls Barkley

20) Maya’s Theme – Cucu Diamentes & Yerba Buena

Title: Hasten Down the Wind – Warren Zevon

Hokay. That is it for the memes for now. If I have missed any recent memes, please let me know. XD

soliloquies on causality, y'know, the usual

2009-02-17T22:42:39Z

It's been a while since I updated, and I've been getting bored of seeing the very sad news of Holly's death constantly at the front of my journal, so here's a song and a poem to fill this page here.

The song is a song about the world going wrong in lots of little places, which has been one of my biggest fears all through my life. It's the first of my few songs that has a proper melody and professional sheet music for guitar, bass and vocals. Hooray. Now all I need is a band...

The poem is one I wrote for my girlfriend on Valentine's Day three days ago, but it doesn't look like it! I felt I couldn't write something completely twee and cheesy about love and happiness, so it turned into a weird, metaphysical, borderline-insane thing with an almost Shakespearian feel to it, using the Who buzz-phrase "causal nexus". Oops.

Coming soon: memes. I have been tagged multiple times during my recent absence, so I'm way behind on the meme front. More memes. Yes.

The Purple in the Eye

It started slowly, oh so slowly
Blackness on the edges of the street
Purple in the corner of the eye
Slowly rising, building ahead
Clear behind, but don't look back

Travellin' down, like an arrow like a string
Clear behind, never lookin' back
At the bins and the grease and the brick-flesh walls
Never look there, the purple mist in the bins and the grease
The purple in the eye

The colours, they say, the colours are the key
But they never look back
Look left for the cars, look right for the cars
Not at the cars with the purple and black
On the bonnet and the back
In the window, and the sun is slack
In a warm and brittle sky
With a tinge of purple
The purple in the eye

Slowly it got into everyone
Didn't know how and didn't know why
The purple in the eye was everyone's eye
And nobody knew, and body went by

More mist on the street on a clouded dawn
No sheep on the reddened mountain field
No silkworms on the edges of barns
Stripping away, the ocean hells
And more yellow and green
And red and blue blocks
In the pool of balls
The purple in the eye

Don't look back, never look back
'Cause the way is clear and the way was clear
Do not tarry, whatever happens, my friend
Do not hurry, but arrow along
'Cause the way is clear and the way was clear
And the sun is shinin', it's a lovely day

But slowly, slowly, it was going wrong
And the day was long
And no songs were sung
And the sun hung like a block on the sky
And body went by
And body went by
Smiles hung in place, just a crease, just a thing
Hung on the face
For public viewing
And the sun was like a block that never gave
Little lover pools of candlelight
In the reservoirs of the moon

Slowly, oh so slowly, things went wrong
And over the long
Grey scrawl of the sea
In a waxwork country incandescent as the moon
Where blue glass rises
In reefs from the ground
And the sky is like a tiger, that wanders round
And the stars are silent
As flashes in the black

The last of the thinkers, gathered across the night
The blast and the fallen, seeing it all right

Fires and wavelengths, never any joy

The last of the blinkers, gathered across the night
The blast and the fallen, seeing it all right

No hope for the rest

Soliloquy on Causality

One thing starts another like a ladder
Whose celestial climber's crawling to the top:
One thing starts another like the ripples in the sea
Of eternity - why will it never stop?

I wish my movements never resonated;
I wish my verbal clamourings would spin
In space, suspended in the blissful blankness
Of no causes, and no reasons, and no sin.

But is time's very nature not to cause
And to be caused: to be, and to make be?
No! Time is but a measurement of change:
There would be change, but nobody would see.

I wish the causal nexus would erode,
And one day would stop bothering us men,
So we could walk through atoms still as glass,
And finally live: then, and only then.

That still air strewn with cold, unmoving fires!
And naked men and women passing through,
Flowing in great thought-streams to their homes
To witness, side by side, the old and new.

an obituary of sorts

2009-01-15T11:23:50Z

My cat Holly passed away yesterday. A massive tumour had grown inside her intestine and had latched onto several glands. She'd been throwing up on a regular basis for two weeks by the time she died, so we knew something was wrong. I never expected her to die, though. I told everyone in my family the night before the vets operated that she wouldn't die. I feel a bit stupid and guilty for that now.

Never mind me, though. Holly was a gorgeous cat, weird and eccentric and possibly plain mad, but she had the most gentle touch of any cat I've ever seen. She'll be missed (especially by her brother Pebble. We'll have to give him lots of extra love now).

Holly (right) and Pebble (left).

huge spoilers

2009-01-03T18:23:03Z

Cut for huge Doctor Who spoilers (ie. Eleventh Doctor spoilers) and incoherence.

I LIKE HIM. I LIKE MATT SMITH THOUGH HIS HAIR IS RIDICULOUS AND HE NEEDS TO CUT IT. BUT I DO LIKE HIM. OH YAAAAAAAAAAY IT'S NOT A WOMAN OR A DWARF LESBIAN BANDIT. OH YAAAAYA. I'M LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF AT THE EXPLODING FANDOM. WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT A FISH NOT SEEING THE POND IT'S IN? 'CAUSE IT'S BOLLOX111111111 (May, no, HAVE strayed very off-topic. In short, I like him. I think he may be as good as or better than David Tennant. It's hard to tell at this stage obviously but OH POOPOO TO CAREFULLY CONSTRUCTED SENTENCES. I'M HAPPY. YES

most random post ever

2009-01-03T10:26:43Z

I just woke up from a horrible nightmare. In it the Eleventh Doctor was announced to be a woman. A middle-aged, mousy, uninteresting sort of woman, at that. I think I'll go and have a shower nao.

cataclysmicality

2008-12-19T16:25:30Z

A new banner to suit what I'm doing at the moment - rewriting Time Chasm and also rewriting Time Chasm. Here is an obligatory copyrighting/thanking thingy.

Sunset (c) You are Wiser than You Think
Clock (c) Ball Family Records
White cat (c) Unknown
Photoshopping and all fictional characters, scenery and objects depicted (c) Ooh, who do all these belong to?

Thanks to the owners of the photos. And thank God it's Winter Present Giving soon.

timey chasmington

2008-12-15T13:33:31Z

I've just committed myself to rewriting the entirety of my fic Time Chasm, as I re-read it the other day and it made me cringe. I have three words to say: God help me. It's at times like these when I wish I actually believed in him, he sounds like a great stress-buster. And a great help. Anyway, here's the very first scene of the original compared to the very first scene of the rewrite. I know which one I prefer (the latter, obv!) and that's good news, but I still feel God, or at least a god, should help my poor tormented soul.

(Timey Chasmington Scene I Mark I)

Zenith slept.

It was a bright, clear morning a few years after Zenith’s victory over the Dark One, and his Arkalang powers had slowly faded. And he was glad of it, he thought lazily, as he basked in the warm light that seeped into the Cat Clan Cave and played across the soft rock, sending all the cats into an easy, beautiful rest.

Slowly, one by one, the cats stretched and got slowly up, their eyes clogged with sleep, still only half awake, bathing in the sun, no haste in their actions.

And that was when the portal opened.

In the very centre of the Zenith Clan Cave, a red shimmering doorway appeared. And nothing else. For one moment there was the buzz and hum of power. Then silence.

‘Zenith?’ Meteor asked, uncertainly. The kitten was now grown into an adult cat, a fine specimen, muscly yet not hulking, handsome and sleek with black and white fur.

‘Yes?’

‘What’s happening?’

This chorus began to catch on, and soon the other members of the Zenith Clan, including Lermus, Stardust, Moondance and Domino, were asking their leader what was going on.

Zenith gritted his teeth. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, calling out so that every cat could hear him. ‘We’ll have to see.’

With that, the cat stretched out, then levered himself to his feet. He strode over to the red shimmering oval patch, and poked it with a paw. There was a humming sound, but nothing else happened.

Intrigued, Zenith stepped into it, but merely came out the other side.

‘Father,’ Stardust said, sunlight rippling across her smooth dark fur, ‘what shall we do?’

Zenith yawned wide, displaying his teeth. ‘Explore, I suppose,’ he responded sleepily. ‘To see if there are any more of these things, in the Lantian Clan Cave, or down in Lagul-Gulla itself. If necessary, even further afield, like Beyond the Beyond, or Nospurr Mark Two, or the Catsphere, or...’

‘All right,’ Meteor said. He stretched lazily, his magnificent body being displayed for all to see in a confident boast. After what seemed like eons he stopped the stretch and collapsed upon the rock-hewn floor, his fur glittering in the milky warmth of the sun.

Zenith spoke out to the cats. ‘I will look out on the land, to see if there are any more of these...’ The hiatus conveyed Zenith’s distaste for the oval shape. ‘Meanwhile, get some sleep. I can tell you’re all exhausted.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ Stardust said. She came up to Zenith and licked him affectionately. Zenith smiled. He loved his kittens.

Then Stardust, too, gave way to sleep with a grateful sigh that escaped from between her teeth and tongue. One by one the cats dropped off again. The sunlight streamed across the cavern.

Zenith padded away.

(Timey Chasmington Scene I Mark II)

Zenith woke.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he knew he had done so a minute too early. The sun blared through his mind, fusing and tangling a mess of blurry nerves. He slammed them shut again, suppressing a mewl. Zenith, you idiot, he thought, partly to scold himself, but mostly to confirm his brain was still working.

The warm enclosing darkness was less comforting than it had been, and now bore tiny dancing shreds of light. Zenith could not go back to sleep now, but was glad. He felt warm and happy and nowhere, knowing another day was ahead, another day without purpose and direction, ambling in the sun.

I’ve got so much to do, and so much time to do it.

With this thought, Zenith eased himself into full awareness, and wiped sleep off the corner of one eye with a careful paw, slowly unravelling the tight curl his body had automatically formed. He peeped blearily around. All the other cats were silently sleeping, tails flung out behind them or wrapped delicately round tucked-in limbs, eyes softly lidded, round shapes subtly rising and relaxing.

A feverishly concentrated hum bit a chunk out of the morning ambience.

Zenith started, turned, looked fully once again. There, at the centre of the Zenith Clan Cave, was a half-misted burst of colour. Zenith blinked, long and slow, trying to further remove the fog and grit from his mind. When he pulled his eyes open once more, the colour was fully formed – a sharp, shocking oval slice of scarlet humming at the very centre of the cave.

That was when Zenith started to worry.

He walked forward, slowly, wondering suddenly and strangely if he was still asleep somehow. The red oval hissed and hummed pneumatically, as if a big, decaying machine was somehow enfolded in that pretty, precise shape. Zenith’s paws dodged and slipped between sleeping cats. He wondered how they could be sleeping through that awful noise.

Before long, Zenith arrived beside the oval shape. He stuck his nose fearlessly into it. The humming intensified. His whiskers twitched in subconscious irritation, and a tiny frown creased his round, chunky white face. The absurdity of the situation was slowly starting to crawl abominably through his mind. What is this? he asked himself.

The sun seemed out of joint with the rest of the world to Zenith, a big benevolent ellipsis rising in the sky. Zenith felt that lightning and rain should be washing down on the Caves right now, to match the sinister thing that had just appeared in the middle of his cave. Zenith sniffed in a brief, tinny fashion. Nobody had witnessed the appearance of the shape, save him. Maybe, just faint maybe, if he could get rid of the damned thing before the cats woke up, then nobody would ever know. Maybe that would be best.

Zenith swiped at the scarlet oval with a determined paw. That blasted humming got louder once again. Alright, well if he couldn’t get rid of it by waving and scraping, then perhaps... kelu? As soon as he had thought of it he rejected the concept; much too loud. Zenith realised with a heavy, uncomfortable shift that he had already exhausted all the options he had.

Well, he would be damned if he just waited for someone to wake up and join him. Zenith trod heavily but silently over to the balcony which jutted out from the opening of the cave. He stared out defiantly into the sun, testing his vision one last time, before looking down. The sight he saw was met with a smooth, instinctive gasp.

Hundreds of little pretty slices of red oval decorated the slopes of Lagul-Gulla.

A Nice Bold And Underlined Title So You Don't Think The Stuff Below is Also Timey

I think Mark I's problem is that it tries to pack too much dialogue and just general stuff into just a page, and so ends up feeling ridiculously forced. Also, it tells the reader directly that the red shape's a portal, which is one of the fic's greatest mysteries.

Please do give me feedback on Timey Mark II (and Mark I if you want to be thorough). It would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and it would probably spur me on to post more of the fic on LiveJournal and other such sites. Which would be great. :D

Other news... erm, only one bit. I've set up my own wiki, hurrah! This involved downloading about six webservers and apaches and caches and thingies and messing around with things with horrible names like MySQL and www/skins/common/images. It's not on the interweb, it's just on my home server, but it's looking darned shiny and is helping me lots with my fics. I can provide screencappage... here, here and here.

squee

2008-11-29T15:20:52Z

Just finished NaNo, and am so tired. Who knew writing was such hard work? Well, now I do. I am also happy though, obv, as I have finished my third novel. It was the most fun I've had writing something in AGES, due to a) the wackiness of the story and b) the fact it's a shortish standalone. I love standalones. I must do more of them. They let you be yourself by not tying you up in sub-plots and story arcs and the such. Not that I hate series or anything.

I think I need a good long sleep. I'm sure that when I wake up I'll want to bore everyone silly with details about the novel, so be warned!

Here is a shiny blue certificate saying that apparently I have Won NaNo Young Writers 2008.

dw fanmix!

2008-11-12T21:01:57Z

Here is the thing I've been working on this past week, musics and arts and all. It surprised me in many ways. First of all - the nature of the thing itself! I made fanmixage oh my god! Never thought I'd do that. I was inspired by a stray thought when listening to Cat Stevens's On the Road to Find Out, and that thought was: THIS FITS THE DOCTOR. Like a glove. And then I started thinking of other songs that fit him. Not necessarily songs I love that much, actually, just ones that fit. That was another thing that surprised me - one of the songs I knew would work was a rap! (Insert shock here) Yes, Handlebars is a rap. The only one I've ever come close to liking. I feel a bit dirty now, I don't know why. Ah well.

There were a lot of other things that surprised me, but I'll spare you the omgshock for now. On with the fanmix!

Medium: Television.
Fandom: Doctor Who.
Title: Many Stories Told (Many Kinds I Met There).
Notes: Some of the tracks are numbered according to where they came in their original albums. If downloading, please take no notice of this. Annoyingly, I can't remove these numbers. The tracks are downloadable individually, and are all in mp3 format. Cross-posted (or will be soon) to fanmix and rftardis.

full cover art - please comment and credit if saving

tracklist and mp3 downloads

1 on the road to find out // cat stevens
i left my happy home / to see what i could find out / i left my folk and friends / with the aim to clear my mind out
download

2 don't stop me now // queen
i'm shooting star leaping through the sky / like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
download

3 miles from nowhere // cat stevens
not a soul in sight / oh yeah, but it's alright / i have my freedom / i can make my own rules / oh yeah, the ones that i choose
download

4 falling down // st thomas
we run for the weaker soldiers / even when they're not around / always run for the weaker soldiers / morning after, without a sound
download

5 you know my name // chris cornell
when the storm arrives, would you be seen with me / by the merciless eyes I've deceived
download

6 like a big time // st thomas
could someone open the window for us / we're going out to fly
download

7 hey, that's no way to say goodbye // leonard cohen
many loved before us, i know that we are not knew / in the city, yet before us they smiled like me and you
download

8 handlebars // flobots
i can guide a missile via satellite / and i can hit a target through a telescope / and i can end the planet in a holocaust
download

9 man in the long black coat // bob dylan
he looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask / if he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
download

10 he's frank // brighton port authority & iggy pop
he got secular joy / he's a peculiar boy / but now the lustre's gone, the peculiar boy is no more
download

11 cowboy, cowgirl, moviestar, moviestar // st thomas
oh no, it's never gonna happen / you're walking around in a slow town / outsided by lots of people in a slow town / you're gonna stay
download

12 eyes // rogue wave
missed the last train home / birds pass by to tell me that i'm not alone
download

13 golden slumbers // the beatles
once there was a way to get back homeward / once there was a way to get back home
download

14 gypsy // van morrison
you can make out pretty good when you're on your own / and you know just where you are when you wanna roam
download

15 dw theme // bbc (ron grainer & the bbc radiophonic workshop)
instrumental
download

ravenous furbies and religious fanfics

2008-11-01T15:03:47Z

Oh, the joys of plotting new stuff. It's been so long since I did. Well, not actually that long. A few weeks maybe. It still feels like something fresh, something new and exciting, whenever I do so. And I have been doing so. Oh yes, lots of lovely plotting, for a fic I'm SO excited about. It used to be called The Ascendancy Scream and it used to be a huge convoluted mess of randomness and surrealism, but in the last few days I've come up with some FANTASTIC ideas (if I do say so myself) which have slid sleekly into the mess and plugged the holes and made it into something artistic, something thrilling, something I feel is going to be BIGGER and BETTER than anything I've ever done before. Whew. That's that over with.

(Yes, I have been getting on with sekrit!project also, which is quite some achievement!)

OR MAYBE IT'S NOT OVER! Maybe I've still got more to say! Oh, I do, trust me. And I'm gonna say it now. Right now. It's about Furbies. I've got a character in TAS/whatever it's gonna be called now called Lord Furby, and I quite like his character. He's a vicious, scheming, squeaky, leaping... well, Furby. He's a politician, and he's in the middle of building an empire when we meet him. He's got lots of nasty stuff to do in the story (more than a few eye-peckings) but I won't go into that in detail, because I'm worried about something. Do you think Furby Inc. or whoever made the little blighters would mind me using a Furby in my story?

I'm not sure. I really hope so. It's a bit of a shame that the one character who I might have to ask permission to use is the one character that is the most evil. Would the brand let themselves become associated with death (bloody death at that...)? Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it's been bugging me for a while now. I hope it doesn't come to me swapping his name and appearance for something else. Furby fits him perfectly, and another name or description would feel slightly wrong now I've created him.

In other news.... David Tennant...

...is leaving Doctor Who! I think this is a good thing. I was already getting a bit tired of Ten, and his character was becoming noticeably strained (most noticeably in Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead in Series Four, with his most cliched and quintessentially, boringly Tennish characterisation so far). I think a big regeneration finale would do the show good (PLEASE DON'T COCK IT UP, RTD, I'M BEGGING YOU!) The knowledge that Tennant's time as the Doctor is going to end soon, I think, injects some much-needed energy into Ten's character, and will probably boost my enjoyment of the specials.

And more other news! I have just discovered something rather lolarious about fanfiction.net.

THERE IS A SECTION FOR BIBLE FANFICS! Oh my daisies. What the hell? Who would write Bible fanfics? (I don't know, as I have not looked.) Surely the Bible is a holy work, and must not be imitated or mucked about in? What would Jesus say?!

Staying on the topic of fanfiction... the author of My Immortal 2 is not Tara Gilesbie, the author of "worst fanfic ever" My Immortal. Yes, I know. I cried too. To find out that it's just a mockery of the original and that we're probably not ever going to get any more Tara badfic to lulz at... it makes me very sad, to be honest. Very sad indeed.

out of the blue

2008-10-18T21:27:09Z

A few days ago, I wrote a poem. A very, very weird poem, called The Painted Man. I honestly don't know where it came from. Well, I know where the name "painted man" came from - a story I wrote called Time Chasm. And I know where the main setting of the story came from - me looking at stunningly stark and beautiful space photographs the other day. But apart from that... it came out of the blue.

The Painted Man

The satellites look down on us, they smile in high lands
They know how we live, and they know how we die
They're angels in a heaven of the dark
They know that, somewhere in the purple night,
Somewhere under nebula-fire there stands a painted man
His prismatic eyes look into the stars and see the swelling of the light
The dying of the light, the conception of the light, the story of the light.

The painted man; he stands like a cut-out
Grinning as worlds tear asunder, grinning as love falls
Grinning at Spiritus Versi, grinning in the candlelight
The painted man is luminance, the painted man is God.

The painted man's face ripping on the wind of dancing dusts
The painted man is swimming in the wild of every world
The painted man! He'll be there when the angels begin to fall
And his prismatic eyes'll see into nothingness, the blind void

The painted man is atoms, he becomes them as he goes
His shadow is a longing line of grey upon the grey
And his shoulders shine in the framework of the sun
And his eyes glow brightest when the space-night's near

The house that is behind him is brown and white and red
And its windows never open, and its shutters never close
And there are people inside it, in the clockwork house
And the ceilings of the rooms are forged of faded time
And the floor is made of ancient hate, strong and long and pale

Miranda and the diamonds stare out the lonely folds
The darkest cracks, the wind and rain
And the storm falls heavy on the night bright light
And she cannot see the painted man, she only sees the blight.

He stands as vigilant as the unreal mountains behind, ahead, behind
He cannot let the clock turn back, he cannot leap away
And his eyes blaze fire, fire that grows and burns and sticks
And his grin is constant as the sun, as shrill as paper screams

His grin drops only when the stars begin to fall
It's coming, in the wounded light
It's coming, in the lonely hells
And the painted man steps forward
And the shadow folds away
And the house is left alone
And is blinded by the day.

There are some hidden meanings in there, although I'm not sure about how well and coherently they're conveyed. If anyone thinks they can see anything deeper in that weird sprawly mess, please tell me in a comment, I'd love to know.

Wow. Writing that was pretty intense, yet at the same time, I loved it, because it reminded me how much I adore poetry. Many hugs for poetry.

musics

2008-09-27T10:15:09Z

Well, para_dee posted a meme here to do with lovely musics, and all the lovely musics she thought were lovely that began with a certain letter. I asked for a letter, and, lo and behold, I got the letter essss, and here I am, listing five lovely essy musics.

Sun Goes Down - David Jordan
Sad Lisa - Cat Stevens
Saint Dominic's Preview - Van Morrison
Stand Your Ground - Within Temptation
Strengthen Your Bow - St Thomas

If you wish to do a meme about lovely musics, ask me or para_dee to give you a letter. I'm sure we'll both be very compromising and we won't eat you our give you a horrible letter like ex or jay or something.

it infects you through the eyeses

2008-09-16T19:27:01Z

WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT FOODSTUFFS?

DYSTOPIA, THAT'S WHERE. DYSTOPIA.

(If you see this, make a very random remark in your journal.)

I am very sorry about this meme. On a lighter note, a note which does not entail sorriness and silliness, the first bit of my fanfic project is finally starting to look like something I could actually pluck up the courage to post on LJ and elsewhere. Of course, I shan't really post it until all the bits are finished, but yes, I am v. v. pleased.

how teh writing thingie is going

2008-09-06T09:18:40Z

Well. I would say it's going smoothly so far. Much more smoothly than I thought it might. I'm nowhere near finishing even the first bit of it, and there are going to be quite a lot of bits, I can tell you now... but still, it's progressing, and I'm proud of what I've done so far. Hopefully the finish won't be too far off.

Now I'm slightly more confident about it, I can tell you some more about it. It's a ridiculously long and epic fanfiction project, and it'll be in several bits, and I'm not going to post the first bit anywhere until I finish the last bit, which may never happen, so please, this point is still valid - don't get your hopes up, if you have any. I may become too lazy to complete it, something that has occurred a lot since I wrapped up Aeon War. I think the condition is called post-massive-project blues. I'm hoping to combat it by starting another massive project.

Fingers crossed that it works!

Insanity

2008-08-30T16:08:09Z

I have just started an INSANE writing project.

It's massive, and insane, and I'm not going to tell anyone what it is because if I do, I'll raise expectations that I'm going to finish it, and I don't know if I can. But I'm going to have a try.

Wish me luck, everyone... I'm going to need it. :)

more iconage

2008-06-28T11:40:02Z

Yes, yes, I know, two posts in one hour. I feel in a posting mood today. I also feel in an icon-posting mood, for I have made forty-three new Doctor Who icons ready for sharing. What's more, they are in a pretty icon table thingy. Thank you to acciochocolate</lj> for telling me how to get this table working via a comment on my last icon post, and also thank you to this site for providing the code for this table.

Without further delay, here is the information on this icon set:

Total 43 Icons:
25 x Doctor Who - 3x08 - Journal of Impossible Things
18 x Doctor Who - Misc - 2x08, 2x12, 3x05, 3x13

Here is a small preview of the set:

001

002

003

And here, under a cut for slow loading reasons, is the full set:

(HAD TO BE DELETED, ONE DAY THEY JUST STARTED MUCKING UP THE PAGE. IF ANYONE STILL WANTS AN ICON WHICH THEY REMEMBER, OR ONE OF THE PREVIEWS, THEN LEAVE A COMMENT.)

before the finale

2008-06-28T10:30:37Z

In the calm before the storm (ie. the arrival of the hotly anticipated Doctor Who series finale) I have finally written up some short reviews of the first five episodes of Season Four so far. By the way, if you don't agree with the opinions I express here, please don't flame me or anything like that. Right, here we go....

Episode One - Partners in Crime, by Russell T Davies

This episode was an extremely lightweight and somewhat insubstantial forty-five minutes - bereft of scares, thrills and twisting plots, which are some of the trademarks of Doctor Who. It was so bereft of these trademarks that it didn't feel like Doctor Who at all - rather more like a cross between a soap opera and CBeebies. This episode is a prime example of what annoys me about RTD: he's so keen to experiment that he often forgets what Doctor Who has to ALWAYS be about. This review so far seems to convey the feeling that I hated the episode, and I didn't - because Donna was fantastic this time around, and the whole purpose of the episode was to bring her back, so I suppose it succeeded in a certain way, and also I loved the big meal made over the Doctor's treatment of Martha, which I was pleasantly surprised by, having expected RTD to gloss over the subject - but it did leave me feeling rather annoyed. This annoyance was doubled by the *roll-eyes* moment of Rose Tyler appearing on a London street. It was obviously thrown in to stir up the fandom, and left a bitter taste in my mouth. Enough Rose references already. 4/10

Episode Two - The Fires of Pompeii, by James Moran

This episode, for me, marked the real return of Doctor Who. We finally got to see some of those programme trademarks - thrills, scares, a twisting plot, etc. We also saw some tantalising hints as to the future of the series (the fortune-telling scene sent and still does send shivers down my spine). But the real star of the episode was the building relationship between the Doctor and Donna. Writer James Moran provided a fabulous character study of both of them - Donna still not understanding the rules of time and the Doctor being sadly all too aware of them and the doom of Pompeii. The episode did have its faults, largely due to the annoying Roman family and their antics, but overall it was a success, especially after the wet slop of Partners in Crime. I just wish the episode had ended with that beautiful shot of the TARDIS spinning through the vortex, rather than with the cringingly unfunny coda in Rome.... 7/10

Episode Three - Planet of the Ood, by Keith Temple

A stunning episode, from start to finish. I'm struggling to find a single fault with it. Everything was in place again after a disappointing first episode and a good but not outstanding second - the performances were top notch, the writing managed to force a tentative fandom into loving a race of semi-homicidal noodle-faced business-suited aliens (some achievement) and the direction from old favourite Graeme Harper was edgy and intense. And I thought The Fires of Pompeii was emotional - this was heart-rending! I had loved the Ood from the moment they'd emerged from the yellow door in The Impossible Planet (yes, I know I'm strange) and to see them enslaved and brutalised in the way that they were in the episode had me sadder than I'd ever been in Doctor Who before. This sadness only served to further underline the joy I felt when the Ood broke free and stepped into the snow. The Ood really were the stars of this episode, and I thank RTD and Keith Temple for making them so. They were and are my favourite aliens in Doctor Who. A beautiful, beautiful piece of television. 10/10

Episode Four - The Sontaran Stratagem, by Helen Raynor

After Planet of the Ood, I expected Episode Four to be another disappointment, but The Sontaran Stratagem held up to its predecessor surprisingly well. The Sontarans lent it a great deal of wit and threat, and the return of Martha Jones was obviously a highlight, especially for me. I couldn't help thinking that the episode's plot was a bit underwhelming - evil child genius uses cars to kill the planet, erm, over-the-top eco-message anyone? - but, to be honest, I didn't really care, because the episode focused on all the fun returning elements it had to play with, and it played with them very well and entertainingly. It wasn't an amazing episode, but very solid and enjoyable. 7/10

Episode Five - The Poison Sky, by Helen Raynor

My lasting impression of the episode was: nothing new. And it wasn't. Clones, poisonous gas, epic battles, anti-war messages, spaceships, UNIT, Sontarans, a mash of companions - sound familiar? It was fun, and that was it. The bad guys were killed, the good guys survived, the mess was cleared up, no main characters died or returned, nothing affected the series' overall direction. Of course, none of these things are necessary in a Doctor Who story, but surely the second part of a two-parter should be a bit more... important. I suppose it was a fun second part. It lived up to and exceeded the standards of the former episode. It used the Sontarans and UNIT and Martha well, but it was all a bit too neat. This two-parter wasn't necessary in Series Four, and that's what annoys me about it. I'll give it the same score as its predecessor because it was, to be honest, more of the solid same. 7/10

More of these reviews will probably be coming soon - perhaps in a few days, or next week? :)

oh yeah, and...

2008-05-31T08:05:51Z

A new banner, at last! :) I could add this onto the end of the previous post, btw, but I like making new posts and trying out new userpics. (I think I am addicted to LJ.) I would like to thank everyone on the internet whose images I used in this banner. A quick list:

Doctor Who Futuristic City (c) BBC
Dark Brown Cat (c) Cat Pregnancy Report (no, really)
Lord of the Rings Witch King (c) New Line Cinema
Blue Mountains (c) Beach Photo Gallery
''Broken Glass'' Background Texture (c) Alucare

Unfortunately I cannot seem to find where that brilliant burning sky came from. I shall continue trying to, as my banner definitely owes a lot of its colour and atmosphere to that picture of the sky.

Photomanipulated image and depicted characters & scenery (c) me and this journal!

Thank you everyone! I hope the banner's been worth the work.