In which Lal takes requests and has a Zombie Boyfriend (onlynotreally)

[laliandra]

Requests at the end, first, DELIGHT!

I am delighted, yet again, because my tee shirt came! You can buy them at Shop Marmalade!  It's much greener than it looks in the picture. It's uber soft as well, you know how tees shirts get after you've had them a little while, only this came like that.

Here is a picture of me being a total poser in it.



And also what I believe they call 'The Money Shot'


I have also found out that you can preorder my friends' band's album from Amazon! I find this remarkably exciting. They are unfairly talented and charming boys, who always have something smart to say. For example, regarding So Tomorrow, one of my favourites, they say

The song was written for a friend of ours who was so anxious about his future and his decisions that he couldn’t move forward at all. OSA have on occasions found themselves equally bewildered by the choices that they see before them. We live in a dual world where every small personal decision we make might have enormous consequences; eg. when OSA buy a cheap pair of trainers are we saving money so we can pay our rent, or are we supporting the abuse of a 14 year old in a sweat shop in the Phillipines? AAAAAAAAAAAAAggggggggggggg

ghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So Tomorrow asks how much time we can afford to spend feeling guilty, and whether it might not be better to go out, take up cigarettes and stop waiting for life to miraculously become easy.

And to all of those of you who are anxious about the future, just remember: It’s not happened yet!

So, in the sprit of the thing, I have started to apply for a Masters in Applied Translation. ARG. Terrified!

Anyway, I am very happy but utterly museless. I really want to write, but I can't think of what. So, I'm taking request. Anything you've ever wanted to ask me about? Go for it. Want me to write you some fic? Just just tell me what. Specific as you like, in fact, go super specific, I need help and inspiration! I'll blog/write/well thats all I can do because I fail at drawing whatever you like.

HAVE AT IT!
 

Comments

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

Hooray, t-shirt! And I went and looked up your friend's band on YouTube and YES THEY ARE EXTREMELY GOOD WHY DO YOU KEEP GIVING ME AWESOME MUSIC TO CHECK OUT WHEN I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT UNTIL THREE MONTHS FROM NOW HONESTLY.

As for fics... well, I see that you have Terry Pratchett down as one of your interests, so, assuming you've read The Truth - PLEASE WRITE SOMETHING WITH WILLIAM DE WORDE AND SACHARISSA CRIPSLOCK. I love them to death. And I know it's never explicitly stated that they end up together, but I have always assumed it to be true, so... if you would like to do, I don't know, scenes from their love-filled relationship (except they're completely in love with writing newspaper articles at the same time, so...) - like, perhaps... during Monstrous Regiment, when William is off in Borogravia for ages and Sacharissa gets rather piny and whatnot, it would be sweet, I dunno. Orrrrrrrr-- perhaps something with Tiffany Aching and Roland Chumsfanleigh, both of whom I also love to death. Although I have no ideas as to what it would actually be about, so maybe not.

Anyway, I know it's not much, but it's all I've got. (Given as how I am currently trying to write an OC story of my own and it is NOT GOING WELL, I really don't think my mind is the best place to be scanning for ideas at the moment.) Hope it might help.

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry! I would totally link you to some more Mystery Jets but the rest of mine was on my ipod which got stolen (WOE) and I haven't got round to putting a lot of stuff back on. But if you would like some OSA stuff, you only have to ask! I am like their staff. Luckily I work for beer and cake. I used to be their superfan, but they have actual fans to do that now!

I LOVED THEM TOO! I don't actually own a copy of The Truth but I will find one and write something. I like that idea a lot, though the idea of trying to be half as witty as Terry Pratchett is kind of scary...

That is lovely of you and more than enough. I feel your pain on the original stuff front. *despairs of own story*

I know this is like the worst question ever, but what's your story about?

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

Your iPod got stolen? Damn, I am sorry to hear that. And... yes. I would really, REALLY like some OSA stuff. Like, other than the two songs up on YouTube. If you would be so incredibly kind.

I know, being as witty as Terry Pratchett is a terrifying prospect, but I would just love to, y'know, see these two actually together again (since everytime they (briefly) appear in consequent books they are always apart and it is just not as much fun) and I have absolute faith that you can provide something wonderful. (Or if that makes you feel rather pressured - frankly, anything with them, y'know, THERE will cause me happiness of the most supreme order. If it is amazing at the same time, hey, bonus points, but pretty much anything goes.)

And... my story. Okay, so, I don't know if you ever click on my art dump things (I don't really expect people to) but-- you know how they are kind of populated with random people you have never heard of? Those are all from my story. Which is in its planning stages and I have a hell of a lot of research to do and I have to do all sorts of designing of things (like skyports and airships-but-like-boats and an entire English dialect that should be indecipherable to anyone who hasn't heard it before and OH GOD this may not even happen for years but that's okay because it'll give me time to actually become good at writing) but I'll give you a rough outline.

So there are two primary characters - Fynn the cabin boy (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v96/MirokuGirl13/fynn2.jpg) and Dumont (last name, I have yet to come up with a decent first name) the captain (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v96/MirokuGirl13/dumont4.jpg - crappy drawing but oh well) and the pov flips back and forth between the two of them. Given what you know about me and my particular tastes in romance, you have already probably guessed - yes, they end up together.

The story itself takes place in a world where one particular country (the country they are from) has, quite some time ago, decided to focus on using airships to transport both goods and people. And this gets all complicated and whatnot, in fact, my friend Andrea (who is, like, my idea sounding board) explains it far better than I can, but essentially - the airships and skyports were incredibly expensive to build, but the government figured they'd make it up over the long run, so they didn't charge very much for airship services, and it actually did work, and they WERE making it up over the long run, only then all the farmers and craftsmen and whatnot thought that, what with prices being so low, they could use all the money they were saving to make more crops and make more goods to sell, only of course that flooded the market, so prices plummeted and OH NOES. So then the government started paying the farmers and people NOT to grow stuff, only that put the government in debt even more, and the farmers and people started using this money to grow more crops and things on the sly, and so the government was kind of like OH GOD WHAT DO WE DO. So they gave the military essentially free reign to do "whatever they thought was necessary" to regulate production and shipping and all sorts of things and jacked up the shipping prices like woah. (Oh yes, the military has always been in charge of shipping, but... whatever.) Anyway, so now the military is getting quite corrupt (what with people paying them (...with government money) not to turn them in) and brutal too (what with there being no repercussions) so all the people are kind of living in this state of constant terror where you could be shot just for looking at a military member the wrong way.

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

Which is where the pirates come in. (I'm sorry this is taking forever. I'm horrible at summarizing.) People have lived on the skyports (ports that, literally, just stay floating in the sky, never have to touch land) of the military for years (like, family, businessmen, etc) and so some smart people went, Well, if we want to get away from military brutality and whatnot, why not build skyports of our own?, so... they did. Which means that there is now a means to ship goods outside of the government monopoly, which means this is OH SO BAD for the government, which means all the ports and ships associated with them are targeted by the military, labeling everyone who works and lives on them as "pirates". Oh, and then the government goes and declares official war against the pirates, in the hopes it'll rejuvenate the economy. Hooray.

And that's when the story actually starts. With Fynn getting out of his town (a main shipping town, so the military brutality and corruption there is particularly bad) and hitching a ride to a skyport, where he has a chance encounter with Dumont just when all the ports are requiring every ship to take on an extra crew member (in the hopes of diminishing somewhat the number of refugees every skyport is trying to support). And so we have the life-changing meeting of my two main characters and that's, like, the first chapter and I am not good at summarizing things at all. (Actually, all the history backstory stuff will probably be taken care of over the course of the whole book, but whatever.)

The main character issues result from the fact that they are both running away from things - Fynn from his incredibly horrible life down below and Dumont from the fact that he has lost all faith in humanity (he has extreme isolationist tendencies as a result of this). But then Dumont is all, Oh, my adorable cabin boy is so kind and cheerful despite all he's been through, surely humanity must still have hope!, whilst Fynn is all, I feel safe and protected and out of military reach for the first time in my life! Plus my captain is hot like a curry!, cue stolen glances, sexual tension, etc etc. Only then they get caught by a military port and shit goes down and it is not pretty at all and results in each of them kind of being broken again and it just... kind of sucks. And that's where it's all at right now!

At any rate, there are awesome airship battles and gay romance and explosions and, really, could you ask for more? (Well, maybe metal dragons, but there ain't no magic in this story, so that's a no go.) I've only outlined about half of it plot-wise, though, so who knows, it may never find an end and therefore may never get written at all. (Only this is currently, like, my goal in life - to write this book - so hopefully not.)

Sooooooo... since I just spent all that time rambling on about random people and scary corn prices, would you like to tell me what your story is about? (Even if you are despairing over it. I would still love to hear what you've got to say.)

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was partly my own fault. I miss it terribly! Here is some more OSA then. Have you looked on their myspace, I think there is more stuff there.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=c35529b36af0ed718d78a0e555291609034279d35183a237b8eada0a1ae8665a

Your story sounds BRILLIANT. I &hearts airships. Summarising is massively difficult. But I love the sound of the world and all the backstory is so detailed and interesting. But yeah, it's hard to avoid the infodump at the beginning. Your summary of the characters is interesting too, Plus my captain is hot like a curry now there's a line I like to hear! I hope that you get it done because I would love to read it!

So I have two main stories on the go. I CANNOT FOCUS. And they both suffer from a massive lack of plot, but I love the characters, so it's impossible.

The one I'm really trying is, well, the world is kind of like an inter war Britain, but, and this is the issue because I like the idea but, most of the people in the world have the ability to control electricity, in a really ordinary mundane way. Apart from a really small minority and they have to try and function in a world that isn't built for them and can only do a few specific jobs. Our heroine, Sylvia is one of them (because I'm so sick of Chosen Ones with Special Powers and I thought it would be interesting to be special not in an awesome way, but in a "he's special and has to use the safety scissors" way. If you see what I mean.) She is very sensible and likes her job at the Telephone Exchange and like rules and lists and cleanliness. But she gets coerced into spying on people by her brother, Alphie, who she hasn't seen since they were children and how can she say no to him? He's funny and charming but totally uses that to his advantage. Brothers, nothing but trouble. He has a friend called Theo who is a policeman and is relentlessly cynical and is the Most Annoying Person Sylvia has ever met, that is until she meets Tudor, who is relentlessly optimistic.

And then, stuff happens? I'm working on that!

Oh god, that is not a good summary. Makes no sense right?

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE OSA MUSIC. I am listening to it right now and OH FANTASTIC.

And thank you! I'm glad you like it (even if my backstory ran on and on... and on). (All the history and whatever actually can't possibly be thrown at the reader in the first few pages (something I created to save myself, I think) since that's all from Fynn's pov and he is... not that educated, so all he can do is tell things as they are, while Dumont and other characters are needed to actually give the reasons behind it all. Hooray for self-saving character devices.)

... your world sounds bitchin' awesome. I can totally sympathise with the "world not built for me" idea, what with being left-handed and having had countless occurences of "this knife will not cut things!" and "goddamn it, I am sorry I keep bonking your elbow, but I CANNOT HELP IT, OKAY?" - and the whole thing kind of makes me think of how I thought City of Ember would be. (I still liked City of Ember (back when I read it years and years ago) but my mental version was still cooler. Or so I say, at least.) Might I ask why her brother wants her to spy for him? Especially if he has a policeman friend and therefore should probably know the difference between right and wrong? (And who is this Tudor you speak of?) (And, showing my silly American-ness, I know - inter war Britain would refer to during WWII, right?)

And no, that all makes perfect sense! I just wish you had written more!

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

OH YAY I AM SO GLAD! I find it quite difficult to be objective about their music because I associate it with so many things (one of their gigs was me and my boyfriends first kindofdate) so I'm always so pleased when other people like them *beams*

That is an extremely clever device! Go you!

Oh man, the world is the thing I like doing. I have this whole scene about how fascinated Alphie is with light switches in Sylvia's residence, because he's never seen them before.

See now, I'm not exactly sure. Originally Alphie was a policeman too, but I'm not sure now. He wants her to spy for really good and noble reasons. He's convinced that the govt are up to something, that the PM is corrupt and is ruining things. And Theo agrees because he's cynical about most things, which Alphie blames on him being a bitter middle child. Theo is secretly my favourite, but don't tell the others. Tudor is Alphie's other friend and also a policeman. He is an out and out classic hero. Which is terribly irritating IRL, because he always thinks the best of people and situations. I have had this idea in my head for years about a sort of rebel force who find out that actually its not one terrible corrupt despot but a lot of not at all evil people just being a bit bad.

Anyway. I'm sort of waiting for a proper plot to just strike me. Bits of it are rescued from a shitty fantasy story I wrote when I was like 13...

Interwar Britain is between WWI and WWII. It was originally set in a different sort of the 50s but then you start getting into all sorts of other issues.

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well, I know next to nothing about interwar Britain (obviously - yeah, the fact that it might just be the period BETWEEN the wars struck me about two hours after I wrote that question, whilst I was brushing my teeth, causing me to go, "Oh, HONESTLY," or rather more like, "Ohm, MMHFFLEE," what can I say, I am a smart one), so... I don't know what sort of exciting historical developements and whatnot would have been around for you to work up plot devices with, buuuuuut-- I feel it would make sense for Alphie to be a policeman as well, since otherwise, how would he have met Theo and Tudor? (Well, at school, I suppose, is another possibility, so maybe you should just disregard that.) As for the plot... just as something to think about, you might want to involve the electricity thing in some way, since otherwise you've created this rather interesting world but without using it to any great extent in the story itself. If that happens to spring you with any ideas, I dunno. (I came up with my (sort of) plot by my friend Andrea asking me a series of practical questions, so you might try answering some of those - like, what the gov't is doing that seems so odd, what kind of things are the police force up to (or is it just the obvious), etc etc.)