Ash Jay's Journal

11:29pm: Much Art, and an Explanation Thereof
...has anyone noticed that I never have any idea how to capitalize these entry headings?  I'm only a few steps away from capitalizing at random, I kid thee not.  If you ever see anything like, "I had A greaT daY!" you have my permission to smack me.  Hard.

Right then, back to the art!

All right, now we have an new animation here: 

Animation

Not Quick Enough 

It's 500K, so you'll be watching it in slow motion to begin with.  Ten seconds long, and deals with, well, er... there's no dignifed way to say this, is there?  Fine.  Draco pushing Harry up against a wall.  A test of my new animation style and program, requested by addictedkitten.

Sadly, the full size version of this was lost in a recent hard drive failure, and thus there shall be no continuation.

But the idea behind it remains, and that's simple: I'm making an animated music video.  It's going to be about four minutes long, and full size, and slightly dark.  *thinks of the number of people she's killed in it*  All right,  more than slightly dark.  Harry/Draco, set to So Sad So Lonely by Matchbox 20. 

It's all plotted, and all the scenes are all sketched.  So now it's just a matter of animating.  Yeah.  Just that.  Mmm.

Masochist?  Me?  *grins*

Anyway, this kind of leaves me with a bit of a problem.  Do I show bits as I do them?  I'm making two more short test animations right now... do I post those?  And what about all of the many, many still pictures that I'm making?   

I very very much don't want to overload people with art.  At the same time, I'd like to find some people I can bounce early versions of the video off when it comes to that.  At the moment, I'm just planning to take it as it comes, but I welcome suggestions like anything.

Art

( Character Designs )

Contains what is possibly the most disturbingly cute Harry in existence, as well as a sexier grownup version.  *grins*

( Tell Me Why )

An illustration of a fic written for addictedkitten, where a supremely manipulative Draco is coercing Harry into something he's not sure he's ready for.  addictedkitten summed it up best when she described Draco here as being all: "give into my will. Come on, if I look at you hard enough, you will give in to my will."

( No Losers Here )

Draco and Harry and shiny swords.  Partially inspired by Quicksilver, by Aspen, perhaps the hottest swordfight H/D fic out there.  Probably the bloodiest, too, which is not a bad thing in this case. The other part of the inspiration came from lunacy, who gives me the best ideas.

As always, comments on anything make my day... and let me know how much of this you can stand.  *grins*

12:35am: Random Post, and a look at my failures as an illustration style artist
Hey there, all the puppies of the world. A few random facts first:

1) It is so cold here that I spent twenty minutes trying to get into my own building because the lock had frozen. My hands still hurt, and I am contemplating quitting my job and seeing if I can finally make it in the high pressure world of competitive not-leaving-the-house. I think I could do it, people. I have the training.

2) I am up against aome, my dear friend and almost-mentor, in the newest edition of the hpbnfdm_lives thing. That acronym, in case you are as confused as I was, means "Harry Potter Big Name Fans Death Match Lives". I admire the kind of mind that can condense like that. My point here is not that you should vote for me, because... well, it's aome. By which I mean to convey both that I love her to pieces, and that she is manifestly a bigger name fan than me, which is supposed to be the point. I think. I don't know. This is the first death match I've visited, and I'm more than a little afraid that aome is actually going to be legally obligated to come to my house and kill me when she wins. This is where not giving people my address pays off, my friends. Foresight, except that it never even crossed my mind.

No, my point is this: someone, somewhere, thinks that enough people have seen my art that they'll recognize my name. Who are these people? Where are they seeing my art? *looks hunted* This is not a good feeling for a permanent lurker like me - I feel like I should dive into the nearest closet and not come out. Which would work nicely with my career goals in the not-leaving-the-house area, so there you go. *grins*

3) I've been talking to glockgal a bit, and every time I talk to her I feel the need to go over to her gallery and wander around. I also feel this need when I wake up in the morning, and sometimes just after I've read a really good fanfic, and sometimes when the earth spins a little bit further around the sun. I've been there a lot lately is what I'm saying, and, as always, it made me both tremendously uplifted and furiously irritated with myself for the clunkyness of my own style. So, I sat down and honestly tried to do something where I stopped while it was still 'suggesting' shading rather than, say, 'shouting it in your ear'.

( The Unhappy Progression - with pictures )

7:29am: Draco and Harry Never Sing in the Rain
Hey there, puppies!

I'm so tired, people. This is going to be incoherent, and not my normal type of "aren't you a character" incoherent, no, this time I'm going for "aren't you that person they were warning us about on the news" kind of senselessness. Be warned.

All right, first off, I'm going to Florida. Uh, now. This was a trip that was planned, and then cancelled, and now, whoops, here it is, back from the dead like the slasher flick of recreational activities. I'll be trying to stay near an internet connection, but at the moment both my plans and my luggage are unknown. (Seriously, I just threw things in there. It's entirely possible that I've packed only parkas. )

However, in the art department we have something for everyone this month. In fact, if you put all of these pictures together, it's almost like an orgy. If only I'd drawn Hermione and Ginny necking somewhere, it'd be perfect. (Heh. I actually did color aome's excellent picture of that. That counts, right? *grins* ) However, I'm going to post the Harry/Hermione and Draco/Ginny pictures later because... *looks at watch*

Argh. Yes. Must leave.

All right then, let's go:

( Draco and Harry, kissing in the rain )

I love this picture, I really do. I drew it for bookshop in response to the Armchair's Christmas Challenge. It's a picture from her lovely story, Who Loves the Rain, and at this point I should think that the answer to that would be obvious: me. I freaking love the rain, and particularly drawing it, and particularly the way it takes forever and never looks quite right, because how else could you explain...

This - Still More Rain, Opens in a New Window

Which is an animated picture of Draco and Harry kissing in the rain that I will be seeing in my dreams for the rest of my life. And yes, I know I said that about the other animated picture, but that was fifteen frames and had four seperate faces to draw. This? Thirty two frames and has pouring rain. What the hell was I thinking?

Ah yes, right, I was thinking that, bookshop being a mod at the Armchair, knew who was doing her picture early and had to do the work of coding it besides, and that it wasn't really fair that she didn't get a surprise like everyone else. Possibly at this time I could have decided to send her, say, a fruit basket, but I did not. No, I went with an animated picture that took over six hundred layers and about half a gig of file size. (The original is larger, of course, but still.)

I'll probably be posting a walkthrough of how I did this picture, from the original stick figures to the rain, just because I'm... well, proud. And I feel like lightning should strike me down for saying that, but it's true. *grins*

Say something about this picture, particularly about the rain or the hands, dear god, the hands, and you will have a friend for life. Um, me. In case that wasn't clear.

Just... so tired. But happy. And never, ever, going to draw rain again.

Whee!

12:59am: So much art, it's like I'm an artist or something...
...but we all know that's not true, right kids? *g*

Anyway, not only has it been a while since I've plagued you all with my strangeness, but I've also been dealing with the slow collapse of my storage drive. Be not alarmed, gentle citizens, this is not the result of a virus. Nay, it is rather the graceful descent of a dying city, the last burning of a star, the hypnotic inevitability of a large anvil and a small animal..

However, similes aside, I want my freaking stuff back.

So, since my faith in all non-Internet storage mediums is shaken, I uploaded a few sketches for safekeeping as well as the more finished artwork that's been waiting to go up. Enjoy, and try not to laugh too much at the sketches - you never know what will set off your computer. Learn from my mistakes, people. I am Cassandra before the fall of Troy. Except, you know, not telling the truth in any way, shape, or form.

Art For andrush and twitchycat (Outside Link)

A short comic: An Artist and his Mime, and also the other way around

This is a comic - yes, I know. What the hell indeed. But Twitchycat and Digikym have created two original characters that can legitimately claim to be both original and characters, and I find them as irresistible as the rest of the world. Tim - the skunk-haired, well-dressed, and often acerbic artist - is Digikym's. Maurice - the psychotic, smiling, and many-layered mime - is Twitchycat's. Together, they are the definition of OTP, and also kind of frightening. *g*

Two Versions of One Picture, for legomymalfoy

( Harry/Draco - Love is Sweet )

This is quite possible the nicest, sweetest picture I've ever drawn, and seeing it on Legomymalfoy's layout makes me bounce up and down and make puppy noises. It's Harry and Draco as adults, with wedding rings, and looking pretty happy about the whole thing. Have I mentioned that I love it in her layout? I do.

( Harry/Draco - Love is Sour )

This is the exact same picture, created while I was working on the shadows and with a sword thrown in for good measure because... um... I don't know. Because it wasn't there? *g*

( Sketch One: Snape and Harry, random head shots )

Say what you will about my sketches, at least I'm getting a little better at doing things from my imagination, eh? I'd change the heck out of them, of course, but that's still much closer to the basic idea than I used to get. And I love Harry's nose there. (In other words, go me. Yes.)

( Sketch Two: A Look at Chaos, and that guy from Witchblade. No, the other one. )

Someone asked me to put up a page showing my sketchpad, perhaps to allay those nagging rumours that I'm actually a fingerpainter, and I aim to please. Now that I look at it, I like this page. The people aren't bad, even if Kenneth Irons - the smoky-voiced billionaire/secret keeper from Witchblade - did somehow take over the one on the left. Heh. That's just like him, really.

Yeah, this is a pretty typical page - except for the lack of hands. Man, do I draw a lot of hands.

Comments are welcomed, although good vibes are also appreciated. *g*

8:55pm: I still live! But not by much.
Argh. Being sick, how I hate thee.

Nobody who doesn't suffer from my particular afflictions will understand this, but I can't stand the feel of things being cold. My body temperature is naturally around 96 degrees and when I have a fever I move, already dizzy, through a world suddenly become ice. Metal that's normally blood-warm is shiver-cool, and my clothes feel loathsome against my skin. Even the breeze has an edge on it.

Adding to my catalogue of strange woes, my heart is beating hard. Again, my active heartbeat is 50 beats per minute, and that's what I'm used to. But now I have a tin drum in my chest, and I keep having to remind myself that nobody ever died from this. All those vampire-made-human fics? They don't stress this enough, the unpleasantness of something that basic feeling so wrong.

Which all makes it sound like I'm just a big heap of misery, but the fact is that I've been having a ball. I turned on a heater so the air felt right, listened to music so as not to hear my heart, and found out that my new subwoofer can create the effect of surround sound speakers in every room of my apartment and half of my neighbors' apartment. Good times! *g*

Also, I've been drawing. Pretty much all the time. I'm working on a new animation and, as a result, have just been sketching almost the same pose over and over again from different angles. Good clean fun, except that it's not clean at all and I may have to have my carpets professionally cleaned. (Charcoal. Like fingerpainting with ink, but messier.)

I particularly liked two of them that won't end up in the final animation, so I scanned them in and went crazy with the coloring. Coloring is so much easier when I'm sick... my eyes are blurry, so I can't obsess, the colors all look twice as shiny, and I lose all sense of organization. (Six hundred un-named layers. Madness! )

This picture is dedicated to ixchelmala, because without her patronage and general fascinatingness I never would have gotten as far into HP fanart as I have, and to andrush for being as frustratingly talented as she is and so spurring me to drink and draw, in that order.

( Meet me in the grey...in the mirror of your eyes )

I'm still working on getting back to everyone... I've answered all the comments, which was all kinds of fun, although I vaguely worry that many of my replies weren't exactly coherent. At all. Eh, I suppose people are used to that by now. *g*

1:07am: Beware, I live!
... all right, so 'beware' might not be quite the right word there. I'd substitute a greeting but 'hi, I live!' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I could, and have, ramble on like this all day. But I won't. However, I am full of puppy-brand enthusiasm at being back online after a long dry spell of only infrequent internet use, so I can't promise not to romp. I may even frolic, I'm warning you now.

Thank you to everyone who expressed concern about my powerless state... it meant a lot to me, and you can expect profuse and nonsensical thanks tomorrow. You are the wind beneath my wings, the pajamas on my cats, and every insect appendage the world has on offer.

For those who wonder about my extended absence, I present this equation:



It'll be okay, though. The cool waters of the internet have closed over my head, Mars is retreating from its dangerously pretty position near earth, and I have gazed deep into the undistracted abyss of my own soul and found it good.

Oh, and I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean. A lot. Yeah. This film has had a bizarre effect on me. I haven't seen a film in the theatres this much since the Mummy. Me and the love for adventure films with bizarre costuming, charismatic villains, and roguish heroes. It's a sickness.

How much of a sickness?

I made a Will/Jack music video. Be afraid.

It's to the tune of the upbeat, and surprisingly hard to sync, "You're Just What I Needed". By the Cars, that bastion of 80s music.

You can download it here:

Just What I Needed

...you know, I'm going to need more bandwidth if I'm going to do more of these. Hmmm. And you know I'm going have to do more. I'm obsessive like that. Feel free to suggest songs... I'm obsessive and suggestible! The best of both worlds! *g*

As always, all comments are appreciated. And damn it, replied to.

(This means you, people I haven't replied to yet. Power outage - Act of God! Work - Act of Government! But I have the weekend now, and you just watch and see if I do one productive thing with it. I'm that dedicated. Hee. I laugh because I still haven't unpacked.)

5:23pm: Trouble, right here in River City
Have no power in my house.

Have no power in my city.

Almost hit by car twice yesterday while making my way home.

Set bed on fire briefly last night, and will never find candlelight romantic again under any circumstances.

Miss:

Traffic lights
Tim Hortons
Movie Theaters
Radios
Internet
Tim Hortons
Reading by light that actually works
Being able to use water without worrying
Not hearing sirens all the time
Not hearing late night raves
Getting to use the *internet*.

Perks:

Seeing stars I never knew about
Realizing that silence is a *very different thing* than I ever thought it was
Finding out my neighbors will come over very early and stay late if they know I have a propane stove and self-perking coffee maker
Getting shown around Canadian Tire with a flashlight by someone who hadn't slept for 24 hours and bringing them coffee later to say thank you
People letting me cross at intersections... mostly.
Sitting staring at a candle flame because it's too dim to read
Sitting staring at a candle flame just because it's fun
Three day weekend for us computer techs, whee!
Best sleep of my life, I kid you not.

All right, have little time left on this battery, and not sure when I'll be able to beg use of another one.... Best wishes to all dealing with the blackout, and for those who *aren't*... um, send me soft drinks. It's freaking hot!

Going to lie on top of the washing machine now. Talk to you all soon... I hope.

3:55am: Information and Random Plumeria-Inspired Art
aome intimidates the hell out of me, did you know that? I didn't. I only realized it when I found out that her recent picture of Ron "Cute as a button and going to grow up disturbingly handsome" Weasley meant that I was in fact totally unable to draw him for my own Weasely picture. It's that pretty people, and I'm that weak. *sniff*

Anyway, it's a fair trade off. I never would have drawn this picture if Plu hadn't requested a Weasley, citing as her avowed reason that she likes the way I do red hair. (Shiny!) I wanted to make it extra nice for her because her rich posts and wonderful artwork... well, yeah, because she's her, basically. So I mentally set up the best light for red hair that I could think of, and planned the pic around that. So you get:

( And Left Before You Opened Your Eyes )

It's a picture of Percy and Mr Weasley that wasn't explicitly shown in the book... but I hope it happened.

I like it myself, partly because I've recently found a new way to do hair on the computer. I love it, and may have to do a tutorial just to save other people the irritating hours of trial and error that it took me to get there. *g*

Of course, the greatest thing here is the cloth. It looks like cloth! Woo! And hoo, might I add! I dance now.

Seriously, you have no clue what this means. I'm incredibly bad at cloth. If you wanted a woman to create a rough, blobby shape that looked like someone had poked it repeatedly with a piece of charcoal... well, I was that woman. But not today, baby! Ha! *dances some more*

That said, if the cloth is obscenely bad, don't tell me. Please. You can go to your friends and mock me, and say things like, "Hey, that Ash doesn't know cloth from cardboard, yo.", I don't care. (And yes, in my head you say, 'yo'. Blame addictedkitten, my muse and model for all humanity.)

*blinks* Oh, and I'm back home. Yes. That's important too, I suppose. Missed you all, and shall be running around tomorrow like a madwoman, answering comments and trying to see Pirates for the tenth time. (Arrr.)

Nearly four in the morning... is that too late to make a pirate vid?

Probably, eh?

Be nice about the cloth.

Arr.

1:54am: Odd.
My, how strange to be making two entries so close together. This computer must be going to my head. *g*

At any rate, I wasn't happy with my short (read 'bizarre') and humorous (read 'seriously bizarre') Harry/Draco fic for Plu. So I have added... well, probably doubled the length, actually. (Spoilers for OotP. Sort of. Heh.)

Read it here: When What You Need is a Friend

On a related note, I also wasn't happy with my picture for the story. I'm first, last, and all the things in the middle, an obsessive lunatic, so here you go. It's... seriously different. Yes. Hmm. Don't judge me.

On Display

Yes. This has been a strange day. I got very little done, and feel pretty damn good about it. *g*

1:45am: Happy Birthday, Plu!
Hopefully not too late for you - probably not, because at the moment I'm as far east as you can go without ending up in the Atlantic ocean. (Which doesn't sound bad right now, incidentally. Mmm, freezing ocean. Mmm, possible carnivorous sea-going beasties. Mmm, undertow. Anything is better than this heat.)

As a brief aside, some of you know that I took off from my comfy nest with little or no notice, leaving behind most of my clothes, all of my shoes except the pair I had on, and my darling computer who I think about every day and will hurry home to soonest, see if I don't.

Why?

Family. An elopement,(my brother) a rapprochment,(my grandparents) and an almost hysterical fit, (mine) led me to the conclusion that home, while not where the heart was, was certainly where all the action was, and that I'd better get down here before the rest of my siblings married off inappropriately, threw loud house parties, or turned into goths.

Three weeks later, I've kissed the bride, called the cops, and dyed her hair black, respectivelly.

I'm having a hell of a time. *g*

All of which is my way of saying that yes, I was and am gone, and yes, I will answer all comments very soon now that I have access to leisure computers
again, and yes, I'm now working with strange and unfamiliar computers that make whirrs where my computer would purr and have out-of-memory errors where my darling would laugh heartily and then use her extra memory to play complicated solitaire games against herself just because she could.

But this is aome, y'see.

So I had to try.

If you know Plu, you know exactly what is summed up there. If you don't know her you have been unlucky, but the fates are with you. You can seek her out now, this goddess who writes like a demon and draws pure emotion and acts like the best friend you could possibly have pretty much 24-7, even if she's not in good shape herself.

She's an emotional rock and a total nutcase, and I couldn't love her more if she came pre-loaded with graphics software and an extra cache of RAM.

Happy Birthday, Plu!

A Drawing of the Happy Times

Done on impulse, and thinking of you.

( A Short H/D Story - When What You Need is a Friend )

Warning - Spoilers for OotP, though most of them are confused, just like the rest of us. *g*

A Drawing for the Story, With a Twitchy Mouse, God How I Miss My Computer

Read the drawing after the story. It still won't make any sense, and visions of huge hammers may dance in your head, but that's about as good as it's going to get.

Happy Birthday, Plu. I wanted to do something for you, and these are what I came up with. Please, tell me if you'd like something else as well. I'd draw predatory hand dryers for you, you know. I'll write porn! I'll... well, you get the idea.*hugs*

12:10am: So I was wrong...
This is what I'm going to be seeing in my dreams for the rest of my life. Yikes. Yes, in a fit of enthusiasm rivaling that of my early days of fanfiction writing, I have spent the past four days first learning how to animate, and then attempting to animate, the flying kiss between Harry and Draco that I made for lunacy.

Why? I don't know. (Although the fabulous community at HPart probably had something to do with it.)

People kept saying that it looked like a wizarding picture, and I kept thinking hmmm, and eventually the geek in me teamed up with the artist and took out my better judgement in a sneak attack from behind. Anyway, here it is.

Wizarding Picture of the Flying Kiss

It's 200K, so it'll take a bit to load. It'll seem slow while loading, but will hopefully then work fine. :) Anyone who wants the larger version of the animation, a faster version, a slower version, or anything else, just has to ask and I'll e-mail it to you. *g*

A huge thank you to aome, without whom this picture would be nothing like as good and this artist would be nowhere near as sane. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And, because this is part of what got me going on this insane project, here's the link to the large version of the original pic, suitable for wallpapers, (My picture on people's computers. Heh.) printing, or drawing moustaches on.

Very Large Flying Kiss

I'm going to cut here because I'm about to explain how the wonderfullness of HP fandom was directly responsible for my strange venture into animation.

( Commenters, and a Writer Who Lapses into Art )

As before, comments are very much appreciated. Because, well, I'm an idiot. And I do these things. And comments make me feel like less of an idiiot. *g*

5:46pm: Prolific, aren't I?
You poor, poor people. I don't know why I'm being so creative lately. I'd like to think it's the spring, but I'm afraid it's far more likely to be the coffee. I'm a slave to the inexpressible seduction of the coupon book. Mmm, coupons.

Anyway, lunacy proved to be a temptation almost equal to that of coffee when she suggested that it might be interesting to see a mid-flight kiss between Draco and Harry. "Madness!" I said aloud, but interesting, I thought soon after, and before you knew it I was hip deep in reference photos and forcing friends to sit on the edge of my couch so that I could sketch the curve of their legs.

Needless to say, I didn't tell them what I was going to use it for. *g*

All of which goes to this:

( Tactics )

...and if you have an ounce of pity in your soul you will say something about it, because this is what I'm going to be seeing when I close my eyes for the rest of my life. Or until my next obsession, at any rate.

Thanks go to aome, who pointed out ways to make it better and cheered me immensely, and to addictedkitten who loved it, and also because she stays up late with me writing lesbian criminal erotica. Love you both.

There's a fic that goes with this pic, but it turned out so silly that I don't know if I can bring myself to post it. I will edit, and we will see.

12:15am: Obligatory Birthday Post
Midnight now, so I suppose I am officially one year older. *looks at her hands* Wow, they look different.

Okay, so technically that's because I spent a good hour with my punching bag. There's nothing like jazz and a punching bag to make you feel both rhythmic and deadly. *g*

( Thoughts on Life and Change, because that's just how specific I am. )

And, because I hate to make a post without any fandom content whatever, a picture of Dark Harry and Draco, his Red Right Hand, as they might appear in one of the darkest of the possible 'good' futures:

( Harry, Draco, and the Palace of Many Rooms )

I blame addictedkitten for this, and thank her for it.

3:05am: Another day, another post...
Or rather, that would be true if I could manage to post more often. I blame my friends. They write about all these interesting things and I respond, and before I know it I've gone weeks without telling the world about my deep attachment to the tree across the street or the way that some very fragile people of my acquaintance have been making me feel all predatory or...

Yes. You see? This is what happens.

And it's not my fault. *g*

You know, my entire life could be boiled down to that phrase: "I bought my canary a japanese cage... and the wood turned out to be poisonous. And it wasn't my fault." "I almost got married... but not. Not my fault." "I start story after story and they unfold like flowers in my mind and once I know where they're going I stop writing them, obviously, so... not my fault." I'm a victim of circumstances, and the beautiful part of that is that there are always circumstances. Nobody is a villain in their own story, as they say, but I can't say that I'm the hero either. I think of myself more as comic relief.

News, news, news:

I've fallen deeply in love with the world again, as I do on a semi-weekly basis. It's a good thing I live in the city, I tell you, because otherwise I would get nothing done. Every time I step outside the wind hits me like a hammer or the lines of the buildings are straight and perfect or there are puddles the color of ink on the sidewalk or... yeah.

I'm the person you see walking down the street moving my head like a bird, twiitching back and forth, puppy-eager and wide-eyed behind my sunglasses and looking slightly sophisticated with my blonde-blonde hair and black-on-black clothes and ruining it all by grinning at strangers and loving them for sharing the world with me, I'd hug them if I could, comfort them and grab their hair and tilt their heads back to show them the opal-purple mirror maze of glass buildings and clouded sky.

*sigh* I try not to do that. It frightens people.

Do you suppose there's any chance I could make a career of it? "Ash Jay: Tour Guide to the World". It'd be a very portable business, you know. I can show people things everywhere that tighten the chest like a finger run across parted lips, but I don't think people would come with me to see them. Maybe if I paid them.

Right. I need money. Lots of it.

*blinks* And once again, I've managed to say four paragraphs about a two sentence topic. That's a real gift I have here. Specifically, the kind of gift that people try to return the day after Christmas. (I'm thinking here of fruitcakes, but that may just be me. I've irritated a lot of salespeople in my day.)

I've been semi-productive over the last little while, so here's a bunch of things:

Pic

A colored-in version of aome's wonderful original pic. I love Plu's pic so much, and Plu even more so for letting me get my filthy little fingerprints all over it.



Fics

Ahaha. Yes. A few of those. Because ladies and gentlemen, that's just how lazy I am:

And, because addictedkitten enables me like you wouldn't believe, and go bug her for her new story now, really, go, go now, I actually wrote Harry/Draco.

This breaks my longtime vow not to write for pairings that actually have chemistry and screen time together. I'm more of a "they've never spoken a word to each other and aren't actually of the same species but I just know that they could be happy and possibly own cats together or maybe just stalk each other as a hobby, you know, 'us time' but with night vision goggles" kind of gal. (Jack/Samantha, Clarice/Hannibal, Natalie/Lacroix, Jareth/Sarah... catch the pattern?)

( A Malfoy's Mercy, and Other Oxymorons - Part One )
Sara asked me for porn. This is not porn. I don't know what the hell this is, but it's strange and moving towards Harry/Draco and... yeah. The title should give you a feel for the fic as a whole.

( Forget - R - Harry/Draco )

Now this is porn. Harry/Draco porn, to be exact. Really, I swear. It's Harry/Draco. My only strange kind of stream-of-consciousness porn without plot, which can best be summarized thus: "Harry will spend a lot of time in the Gryffindor common room now."

****

And I think the LJ people are just about to cut me off, so I'll wish you all good night. Besides, I do try to get to sleep before the sun comes up. I don't suceed all that often, but I hear that you get points for effort. And there have been rumors of some kind of shiny gold star...

3:17pm: Right. Organization, thy name is Ash.
I'm turning over a new leaf. No longer shall I flounder in the wretched chaos that is my life. My computer is a blank slate, my old habits are in the past and, despite the fact that I found a chipmunk in my briefcase at lunch today, I have no doubt that I can become an organized person.

Seriously. A chipmunk. What the hell? How long was it in there?

Um, I mean, it's all in the past. Yes. Wildlife under the bridge, so to speak.

The important thing is that I'm going to post to this journal regularly, using it as a combination journal, fic organizer and post-it note. We live in a brave new world, my friends. *g*

With that in mind, here's the eleventh part of my neverending Willow/Angelus story. The rest can be found here:Good Intentions

( Good Intentions - Chapter Eleven )

Ah, I feel more organized already. I'm going to take the rest of the afternoon off, I think. I need to buy a new briefcase.

11:31pm: It's like Remmington and the ants over here, people.
I'm beginning to believe that the universe has a grudge about me being able to use a computer. Perhaps this is like a Terminator situation, where I'm destined to write an e-mail that will... um... inspire addictedkitten to write the porn that will destroy the world by making everyone stop dong their jobs and just do naughty PG-13 or higher things all day long?

Seriously, that's about as destructive as I get.

Except for when I stuffed a life size paper mache cow with gunpowder and blew it up.

But that was for science. *g*

Anyway, I come before you all a sadly reduced woman, with my two old hard drives currently imitating a paper weight and a toaster pastry, respecitively. My files are gone, my old mail is gone, my life is a wasteland. So what do I do? Why, the same thing I always do, Pinky. Write and draw. :-D

So, first, fic: Trading Space/Buffy crossover. Willow and Anya redecorate Spike's crypt with Hildi, Spike and Xander redo Willow's witchy room with Doug, who seems far too comfortable on the hellmouth:

( Our Insurance Doesn't Cover This )

And pictures, too:

This is Aimee. She has red hair, pale skin and no interest in girls. Pardon me while I cry like a baby. But, at least she was nice enough to let me draw a picture of her, eh? :-D



This is a sad thoughful girl drawn during an Oscar party. I don't know. But I like her anyway.



And that's it for tonight, folks. Because I am sleepy and must post Willow/Angelus semi-porn tomorrow, or risk the wrath. Not anyone's wrath in particular, really. Generalized wrath.

12:43am: Man, what the heck am I *doing*?
Seriously. I'm a writer, you know. Yeah. I write things. They might not make sense, they might have only a passing acquaintence with punctuation and actively dislike the concept of grammar, but I write. Except that, as it turns out, I don't. Instead, I go to art supply stores and browse around nervously until nice men named David introduce me to things like brush pens. (Which are, ironically enough, both a brush and a pen. Shocked? Me too. )

It's getting out of control. Normally friendly people are starting to write me threatening letters in the guise of my characters, and when you write exclusively about men for whom death equals foreplay, it's just a tiny bit disturbing. Must write tomorrow. No pictures. Just fic. Yes.

I'm laughing at myself now because there's no way that's going to happen, not when this brush pen is just coolness to the nth degree. I may never need a relationship with anyone ever again, because how many people do you know who can act as both a brush and pen? Really, think about it. And if you can think of any people who fit that description, send them over.

*cough* Yes. That aside, I've been having a rocking time with this brush pen in an almost totally non-sexual sense. Those who know me know that my style tends to vacillate between complete realism (Willow/Angelus, Jareth/Sarah) drawn from pictures and totally cartoony porn drawn from my own fevered brain. ( Draco, Harry and Bondage.)

Now, brush pen in hand, today I tried out a new style somewhere in the middle:

Idealized Chloe (Smallville or illiterate You be the judge.) I just wanted to draw her hair, frankly.



But you know what? Blonde hair is surprisingly unsatisfying to draw with a brush pen. So, after reading aome's journal, I pounced. Her one year anniversary with livejournal just passed, you see. That should be celebrated. And also feted. But since celebration and feting are a bit out of my reach at this time of night in the middle of a snowstorm, instead she gets:

Seductive Harry (Is he naked in the parts I didn't draw? Um. Off the record, yes. But officially? That's sick and wrong. *g* )



No more drawing tomorrow.

Writing.

Or possibly cleaning. Or shopping. Or... argh. Ferrets are focused compared to me.

Still, at least it's never boring, eh? *g*

10:32pm: Pushing the Horizons, Pizza Slice in Hand
Hey, puppies! I'm in a happy mood today, because I had an extremely productive day. To Do lists trembled and fell before me, leaving me at the happy time of seven at night with nothing to do but amuse myself. At which point, one might say, I could have worked on the Chloe-in-a-bra pic for jrivka, I could have edited the smutty Mal/River/Simon fic to bribe addictedkitten.

But no!

My newly fixed scanner beckoned me, saying that I didn't need to do really elaborate pics anymore. Not when it was there, languid and tempting in grey plastic, coyly implying that it would scan things as many times as I want it to, oh yeah, all night long if I could keep up, so why didn't I sit down with my tiny pocket sketchbook and try to draw something entirely new? Something from my mind, yeah, not from a photo at all.

I resisted for all of ten minutes before I scurried for my pencils, giggling like a naughty schoolgirl at the idea of drawing lips or noses or eyes just from my own twisted little imagination. A novel idea. A scary idea.

But, as it turns out, entirely possible!

So, here you go, my first picture ever not drawn from a photo... I'm pleased. It's tiny and only took an hour and it's impossibly flawed, but I think it's a reasonably symbolic impression of Blind!Draco from aome's wonderful fanfiction, Draco In Darkness.



I wonder if this will lead to drawing more fictional people-characters. That would be whole new worlds of fun. *g*

As always, comments are appreciated, not to say obsessively sought after.

Heh. It worked.

Unexpected.

5:48pm: Art and Explanations
And why have I been absent for the last couple of days, you ask?

Or maybe you don't, but I tell you anyway.... art! Art and my obsessive nature and my relentless need to complete a project once it has begun. So, since whiteotter asked for a picture of Spike and since she is, though don't quote me on this, both the sun *and* the moon of my content, I went off and had fun.

(Which reminds me eerily of how addictedkitten's fabulous Draco/Harry smut sent me off on a quest to make naked cartoon bondage pictures. It's scary how much the people I like influence me. Scary and wonderful because hey, everyone needs a hobby. *g* )

So, a drawing of Spike, in situ on my art book for once because my scanner is upset with me at the moment and I turned to my digital camera:



I like how it came out, actually. It's a late valentine's day present for the aforeadored whiteotter, which is why the coloring. (What's black and white and red all over? Spike! Heh. I need more coffee.)

Comments always appreciated, of course. *g*

11:19am: Thoughts from a Puppet on Fanfiction in General and People in Particular
I just finished commenting on prettybird's lovely new set of icons, themed around the song "The Good Fight" and they got to me. I mean, they really got to me. And that started me thinking about who I am, and what I am, and what fanfiction and fandom has meant for me.

I am a speed reader. Always have been. Six pages a minute, three books a day even when I'm busy, that's who I am and a major part of how I define myself. Books flash by like photographs, snapshots of plot and characters fondly remembered but tucked away in a drawer and seldom brought out again. I read like I breathe, and it's a rare book that makes me stop in the middle or that I don't view with a kind of detached enjoyment.

And then the first few chapters of aome's Harry/Draco fic make me take a deep breath. My stomach muscles clench as if I've just been hit hard in the solar plexus. I pause and read it slowly, forcing myself to appreciate the brushstrokes as well as the final image.

And then addictedkitten writes a funny/sexy/charming Pop Idols/Smallville Characters fic that, despite my almost total ignorance about pop culture, has me making small snuffly laughing noises and licking my lips at the sexy parts and finding it impossible to slow down to beta when all I want to do is run the dialogue through again entire, can't bear to cut it off in the middle and lose the lovely flow.

And then illiterate writes a snippet of something that should be much longer about Arthur/Molly Weasley and suddenly they're real to me in a way that they haven't been before.

And I think back to the other authors who have reached in and grabbed my heart, Whiteotter with the incredible world of the PN (Roswell), Bennie with anything she ever wrote, La Rose Noir with her Buffy fics and effortless humor, Anna MC with her Labyrinth fanfic like something out of my dreams and nightmares and wonderful...

And I wonder, when did I stop being detached? Why can these people get to me like this? Nothing affects me like these stories do. I'm the rock of my family and social circle. People have cried on my shoulder for as long as I can remember, called the police from my kitchen, screamed while I bandaged their wounds and took them calmly to the hospital. I've lived a life that makes people stare at me blankly when I try to tell them what I think are amusing stories from my life. And they laugh, of course. And then they say I should write a book. But it's not a book, it's my life, and I find it normal.

But then why? Why do fanfiction and fandom and people like the ones mentioned above pull my strings, set my heart racing, bring tears and laughter and smiles like many of my favorite book authors haven't managed to draw from me for years?

I don't know. I think that:

- It's nice to be surprised and in fandom, there are no rules. No happy ever after guarantees, no enforcement of heterosexuality, no laws against character death, no morals standards or publishers to worry about. A fic can start off with the line, "Harry put the fork down," and end with the line, "Buffy stripped off her gloves slowly, one at a time, before she put her hands on him." and you don't know where it's going or where it'll end and you may not know even days after you've finished the fic. Fandom is a lawless country, a digital Wild West. Exciting, isn't it?

- Personal connections enhance the reading experience. I know so much more about my favorite fandom authors than I ever have about the non-digital authors I read. I see their personalities in their writing, their kinks and squicks and smiles and them giggling to themselves as they write a particularly good bit.

- In fandom, there's a common base we're all working from, a world already created and understood to be the background of the fanfiction, the bones behind the flesh as it were. Layer upon layer of meaning there and the whole experience is the richer for it.

But I don't know. There's something else there, I think. Something I'm missing. A mystery that in itself adds to the fun.

I can live with that. :-D

5:11pm: Random thoughts and porn
Ah, my first public smut posting in three years. I renounced it, you know. Cast off my official porn cloak and everything, despite the occasional longing glance back at it. It was pretty. It had little bells on it in interesting places. *sigh*

And now addictedkitten, who's quite the addiction in herself, and her shameless praise have nudged me back over the edge. I should be sad about this, I think. It's been an almost religious experience, writing porn solely for myself and leaving it locked up on my hard drive while I went out into the world with happy lusty images in my brain. I'm sure that I've scared more than a few strangers that way, staring at them dazed when they come too close because my twisty mind is already trying to bring them into my fantasy, rearranging limbs and pushing aside clothing so that I can fit one more body on the bed. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Jeez, I can't even remember the last time there was a non-metaphorical bed. That's a little disturbing.

Anyway, porn. Set during Rush, Clark and Chloe and Pete with implied Clark/Lex and a whole lot of inappropriate touching. NC-17, so be warned. Children and puppies need not apply.

( Make Me Happy )

I loved that episode. It should have ended in a roaming orgy, I kid you not. Think about it. Clark/Lex, Lana/Chloe, Pete/anyone... between the three of them being all evil and sexy there wasn't anyone in that town who would have been safe. Lionel? Nope. Martha and Jonathan? Ha. Hardly. And god knows how many of those parasites there might be waiting in that cave...

Smallville: Come for the Meteor Fragments, Stay for the Nymphomania

10:07pm: Do you think this is what they mean when they talk about taking stock of your life?
Pairings I've Written In The Past Two Weeks:

Draco/Hermione - Strange but fun.

Mal/Simon - Their love is so pure... and kinky.

Howlyn/Renee - Adventures in sex, blood and coup d'etats

Willow/Angelus - Stalking, stalking and more stalking.

Sarah/Jareth - Stalking and predatory hand dryers

Willow/Angel and Willow/Wolverine - This fic will haunt me, I just know it.

Chloe/Clark/Pete - Ah, threesome porn. Where would I be without threesome porn? I'll tell you where I'd be without threesome porn: less frustrated, that's where.

Chloe/Lana - Damn you, Rush. Damn you to hell.

Seriously, what kind of list is that? I'd be seriously concerned about my own mental health if it wasn't for, y'know, the fun. Just so much freaking fun. I don't think that I can be held in any way responsible for the abundance of pretty people in the world and the absolute necessity of picturing them all naked. I don't want to do it, but if not me, who? And if not now, when? It's these kinds of questions that keep me up at night.

That and, once again, the porn.

9:55pm: Starting things off
And here it is. A journal. Huh.

Well, if nothing else, perhaps this will make it easier to keep in touch with people. All these lovely people I've known through fandom after fandom and then sometimes, poof. Vanished like spring snow, which is a lovely image except that I'm always the one who disappears. *g*

The thing that's most on my mind today is cold. It's cold outside but as always, the coldest place anywhere is my hands. That's the fun part about winter, the way I'm always cold, except in a way that's not so much fun as it is not fun. On the other hand, it does provide endless entertainment for others. I sit and stare lustfully at people I don't know because I strongly suspect that I could warm myself on their skin if only they would hold still.

Today was especially silly. First, I spent a good ten minutes in a meeting staring at the exposed neck of the person next to me and I swear, about four times I almost reached over and put my hands on her except, once again, the running. And then, a friend brought this new guy up to me and said, "Hey! Ash! I want you to meet Andre!"

Andre, poor fool, stuck out his hand.

And god, so warm. I was lost to all sense of social appropriateness as I held on to his hand and said, "Sorry, sorry, hold on a bit, okay?" And Charlie, my friend, was just staring at me in a slightly frightened way, especially when I brought my other hand up to be warmed. So now, I'm standing there holding Andre's (poor, poor Andre) hand in both of mine, smiling at him in a dazed fashion because it just feels so good.

Five minutes later, Andre was gone, Charlie was chewing me out and I was still smiling happily. Damn it, you can't beat yourself up all the time.