lacrimae rerum

Happy Christmas/Yule/Saturnalia/Midwinter/Hogswatch/non-denominational commercialised obligatory-gift-giving holiday of your choice! :D Note the holly attached to that scythe.



^ A card I made for a friend. XD That cute bundled-up guy in the corner is the PB for my roleplay character, the Archangel Gabriel.



^ Gifts and cards I made/bought for my friends. ♥ Hope the mail is kind to them and that they all arrive safely, if not on time. >_> (I mailed them at the beginning of this week, but international mail...) For some reason I really enjoy wrapping gifts, too.

Also, in 2008 I wrote a crack fic that mixed two carols together called Angels We Have Heard Get High. The lovely sttq has actually recorded it for me! 8D Link here, if this embedding doesn't work.



You'll have to turn your volume up to hear as it's really quite soft, but it features a bunch of angels, completely random pairings, and Crowley and Aziraphale! 8D

Have a great Christmas, everyone. ♥

A very happy birthday to my dear friend and RP partner Sam, aka kleine_teekanne! :D









You're an amazing friend and a creative and talented writer and RPer. ♥ Hope this day and the year ahead bring you joy!

Love,
Roobi, Gabriel, Belial, Bast and Crowley. ;)

I've been on a cleaning/organisational frenzy at home since my job contract ended, and clearly it's extending to LJ. I thought I should try to collect all my fics (the ones I'll admit to, anyway) together in one place. I suck at ratings, so if you think something should be rated differently, please comment saying so. :)

Bear in mind that the earliest stories are most likely not all that good; I started writing fanfic in 2005 and I was only 12 going on 13 then. And that there is a fair amount of slash (male/male pairings: the pairings are stated clearly, so if it offends you, please don't read), and some of the role-play entries may be friends-locked (however, if you add my RP accounts as friends to read them, I will add you back ASAP).



( Harry Potter fanfiction  )


( The Chronicles of Narnia fanfiction ) . Autumn reminds Susan and Lucy of Narnia.

Perfumes of Narnia - Pevensies, Peter-centric, PG13, 2010. Peter is a man in a boy's body.

Constellations and Promises - Susan and Lucy, Lucy-centric, PG, 2011. It was hard to see the stars in London. [Titled Promise on FanFiction.Net]


( The Black Magician Trilogy fanfiction )


( Good Omens fanfiction )


( The Sandman fanfiction )



( Miscellaneous fanfiction )


( Role-Play and Original Fiction )


Hopefully I remember to update this thing. :D

I should be happy.

My picture (I was in costume, too) and some quotes of stuff I said were in the paper today because local hardcore Harry Potter fans were interviewed for a feature on the final film. The final Harry Potter movie is coming out tomorrow, July 14th, on my birthday. My sister already booked our tickets. I have a costume ready. On Saturday I attended an awesome Harry Potter party at the local library, with most of us in costume, and had loads of fun. I keep meaning to put the photos up here. I am in my red and gold Egyptian galabeya and wadjet necklace, planning to meet a couple of friends for lunch tomorrow before meeting my sister for the movie.

Appeals to both the local universities I'd hoped to enter were rejected, but my dad is supportive of the plan to send me to Australia instead to study Ancient History. I can't stand most of my coworkers at my job, though I love the books and genuinely enjoy interacting with customers most of the time. My contract ends on July 31st and after that, maybe I'll give tuition, but I have a few free months.

In fact, the sheer anticipation of tomorrow should have me bouncing. Birthday + friends + Harry Potter movie. And I was supposed to do some cleaning tonight and write a fic I've had in my head for a while and stuff. But I'm tired and depressed and in no mood to do anything much. Even Adam Lambert couldn't cheer me up for long.

I keep comparing this birthday to last year's. Heck, this entire year with last year. Despite the exams and stress, 2010 was amazing. I had so many friends. I was writing and roleplaying a lot. I felt loved and happy.

But several months ago, in March or April if I recall correctly, drama happened. I left my RP comm, and was depressed about it. But I was still talking to the mod, a close friend, at the time. Some time later more drama happened. That night I was in shock and crying as I watched little AIM icons pop up telling me that she'd signed off - since she almost never signed off, I figured she must be blocking me. Given what she'd just said to me, that she wanted nothing more to do with me and that I had little understanding of friendship (I do not remember the actual wording and I do not want to look at that chatlog again)...

I admit I made mistakes. I regret that. Some of it was not my fault and I should have made my noninvolvement clearer - I do not control what my friends think or say - but some of my other actions... they were never meant to hurt but they did anyway. And knowing that I had hurt her to that extent pained me, too.

I miss her so much. Random little things end up reminding me of her every single damn day. Like when I was watching a Star Trek episode with my dad and the characters were using that three-tiered chessboard; I remembered that she owned one, that she said she'd teach me how to play on it, and wanted to curl up and cry. Or at work, when German customers react with delight to my simple "Danke schön!" or when I can make out bits of the German books they buy; I wish I could tell her that because she taught me and it is a credit to her. I wish I could talk to her about the last HP movie coming out, or my costume, or uni plans, or anything, because we used to talk about anything and everything.

The quill she sent me is still on my desk, the statue on my shelf, the runestones on another shelf, and I wish the mail hadn't eaten my birthday card from her last year. I didn't know if I was supposed to send them back or not, as I generally do not return gifts and I do not want my gifts to her to be returned. I wish I had the courage to actually try speaking to her when I see her on Skype or something, instead of sitting here missing her and everyone else from LTSH. I know leaving was for the best, but there were some of them I'd grown close to and whom I miss.

I haven't been able to write or RP much in ages, either, though admittedly I've also been exhausted from work. Hell, I'm exhausted right now, and can only hope a good night's sleep will make me feel better. Thought I should try explaning my LJ hiatus, anyway. There's this, and there's also the fact that it combines with my work surroundings to make me feel very, very lonely. I miss school, too. It's hard to believe it's already July because without the start of a school year for me, it still feels like some strange sort of Limbo instead of actual time passing. I miss my friends and classmates and teachers and lessons. And the library and even my uniform. Nanyang JC was amazing; I think I finally grew up there, discovered who I was and decided I wanted to be that person. My friends certainly helped. I didn't think I'd miss school so much, but I do.

And since I think I'm beginning to make even less sense that usual, and because I'm extremely tired, I think I'd better sleep.

It is official. May 2011 sucks for me.

I got a rejection letter from NUS (the National University of Singapore) several days ago. I'm planning to appeal, and I haven't heard from NTU yet, but it isn't exactly a fun experience.

Some of you know about the RP drama from March/April. For ages after that, I had trouble writing or roleplaying. I was finally beginning to write again when I got my job, and now I'm continually just too tired to write much. I was supposed to submit a short story for a sampler for Singaporean Speculative Fiction, and I'd actually had an odd little idea for a folklorish horror story featuring the Rafflesia. The little bit of research I did showed me that I'd need to do a lot more, and then there was work and exhaustion and waving at deadlines as they zoomed past. I'm still in no mood to write anything, whether for that or for RP or for the gazillion incomplete stories on my hard drive; I just don't have the energy. I haven't even felt up to RPing much lately, and considering how addicted I used to be...

As for work itself, I like being surrounded by books, but that's it. I'm not cut out to be a cashier. Being responsible for so much money is hugely stressful, and I don't like having to be so focused on money anyway. Today I had to return the 'strays' - books/magazines/stationery that customers bring to the counter but then decide they don't want - and as I walked around the store with an armload of heavy books, checking the tiny letters on the barcode to ensure I was returning them to the correct department's information counter, I felt amazingly happy. I've been a student librarian since the beginning of 2006; this sort of thing comes naturally to me, makes me happy. I wanted to be a retail assistant and return and maintain books and direct people to the right shelf to locate their book, but I was told they were more in need of cashiers. Sigh.

And we - my family and I - were supposed to go on holiday to Chiang Mai in Thailand from the 12th to 17th of June. We were going to stay in this gorgeous little resort/spa and have fullbody massages and relax and stuff - we went to Bintan last June and stayed in this resort/spa there and it was amazing. Everything was booked and paid for. And then for some reason nobody mentioned it and I myself forgot. I finally remembered and tried asking my manager for leave. She said no.

Apparently five people had already asked for leave ages ago, and been granted it, and they can't afford any more. As a part-timer I'm not even entitled to unpaid leave anyway, and since June is the school holidays, it'll be a busy period and they need people. So my request was rejected.

And now my sister is furious at me for it. I'll try to talk to my manager again tomorrow, even though I'm, honestly, terrified of her.

Plus a friend of mine has been through a bunch of crap recently and I just found out about one more problem. >< And then there's other stuff I'd rather not talk about.

If I get a rejection letter from NTU as well before the month is out... screw you too, life.

It may be way past midnight but it's still the 25th in most of the world. :P

It is the Annunciation! Being a Gabriel RPer, I cannot let this day go by without at least mentioning it. XD

Aargh. My A Levels were finished at the end of last November and I have a break until university starts much later this year. I'd been looking forward to this period SO MUCH last year, and planning what I'd do kept me going.

Now the months stretch ahead of me and I have so many things to do but just can't bring myself to finish them. Would the word ennui be appropriate? There are times when I just walk around the house, unable to motivate myself to finish any of my current projects or start a new one. None of them seem to appeal to me; sometimes they do but I don't feel like doing them anyway. When I'm on the computer, instead of writing or doing anything productive, I spend hours faffing about on Facebook or reading (in some cases, rereading) fanfiction.

Maybe a list will help. Things that are in progress will be italicised, things I've completed will be struck off.

( Reading )

( Movies/TV )

( Music )

( Writing/role-play )

( Craft Projects )

( Miscellaneous )


*stares at list* This is going to end up like that post-O Level list of mine, isn't it? Lakshmi and I wrote up a nice long list and we only did a few things on it. Sigh.

This was meant to be posted for my birthday; it was meant to be a tiny drabble looking at my RP character Belial, lordofsin , when he was still an angel. It grew and grew and I only finished it in August. I posted it as his LJ here, but somehow never got around to posting it here at my own LJ as I had originally meant to.

A/N: A huge thank-you to steadfast  and sunflower_mynah  for betaing!

I apologise for the italics; it was originally meant to be a very short piece with brief flashbacks and then grew into this. And when I tried switching the formatting, it insisted on being in italics. Untitled for now, but suggestions welcome!

PG13 perhaps, for religious/mature themes. I'm horrible at ratings.

Disclaimer: Carasel and Saraquael are the property of Neil Gaiman in his Murder Mysteries, as is the concept of the Hall of Being and the Silver City, and Gadre'el is my take on Crowley from Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens. Aziraphale makes a tiny cameo too. Otherwise, all angels mentioned are my own takes on Biblical characters.

  *

( It would have been inaccurate to say that Belial had never meant to Fall; he had. He just hadn’t known what it was like, at the time; what it would feel like, what it entailed. What he would Fall from.  )

 

 ~*~

Edit: EEK. There was a huge and embarrassing typo in the Subject field, as I had been in a huge hurry. People, if you see a typo, PLEASE TELL ME.

The wonderful grace_descends , aka Lucifer, requested this prompt for this meme. I hope you like it, dear! <3

Betaed for me by sunflower_mynah . <3

 The song of the Host is inspired by the Music of the Ainur in JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. God’s [first] question and Lucifer’s [first] answer are adapted from the Qur’an.

 Are You Challenging Me?
  

 

( Bow before him. )