(no subject)

[salinea]

Happy birthday jydan ! Hope you have a lovely day ^^ wow, 22 are you not ? you're almost an adult ;)


I'm getting so damn sick of not sleeping until 5 am. I've been on a roll with that since I came back from vacation and it's exhausting. Granted, this is always partly because I spend hours on the internet / reading whatever. However I also do that because i'm in that kind of feverish mood where I know I won't be able to fall asleep. I've never been good at letting myself sleep, since I was a very little girl. I think it's partly because I've got a very nervous personnality. And partly because a part of me is afraid of it (why ? I have no idea... sleeping makes me anxious)

Traditionnaly, I can spend hours in my bed thinking about anything, making speeches to myself, imagining conversations with real or imaginary people, disserting about the nature of life, the universe and everything, or planning out some scenarii/fanfics... It can be exhausting, sometimes, as if my mind would just never stop. And when I worry about something, especially, or am in a self-loathing mood, it's especially difficult.

But I like night too... as if it was this one time where we can be free. No one else to bother you. Nothing expected of you anymore. I don't know. It's like the whole ambiance is different, it's an in-between space, and I love to linguer in it... I don't want it to be a new day yet. Maybe that's what I'm afraid of, the new day.
Yesterday I was finishing re reading Swordspoint. What a delightful novel ! Still think it's better than Fall of Kings, or Thomas the Rhymer for that matter. All the characters are great, and Richard and Alec are such a wonderful couple ! They manage to be as cute as Touya/Yuki and as messed up as SeishirouxSubaru ^_^ Does anyone know fanfics written about Swordspoint ? That'd make my day.

Cool meme ganked from crazylittleme

1. Comment with any ship from a fandom that you know I like, or at least have some knowledge about.

2. I will ramble for 100 words about aforementioned ship. This may be incoherent gushing or exclamations of disgust, depending on what it is. (Oh, psh, you're going to get a five-page ESSAY on some pairings. Screw 100 words.)

3. Put this on your LJ, if you are so inclined.

ETA :
I am either a ...

Hoeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

You're a Magical Girl!

You're sugar-hyped, caffeine-hyped, and permanently genki-er than a whole busload of Disney characters on crack. You eat too much, you're a total klutz, and somehow this makes you an ideal candidate for saving the world. If you're really unlucky, you get to get naked in an embarrassing transformation sequence in every single episode, with only a few sparkles and pastel blobs to cover your dignity. Which generic anime character are you?

or a...

Mmmm... fangirly.

You're a bishounen!

You're male, but people often mistake you for the other option. You're unfeasibly thin and pretty and always have perfect hair, often surrounded by sparkles/sakura/roses. You almost certainly have a tragic backstory which involves one or more of your parents, and are liable to have a Tragic Destiny (TM). You were almost certainly invented by a female mangaka, are worshipped by a female audience, and your life is characterised by periods of extreme pain and angst. Sucks to be you. Which generic anime character are you?

Or possibly a Magical Bishie. Yeah, I think i'll be that. Think of the panty shots !

Comments

[wingblossom.livejournal.com]

Since I'm the first to the punch -- SeishirouxSubaru. :D

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Hehe, opportunistic you :)

Let's face it, I love Seishirou and Subaru because they're so messed up. They're both pretty crazy, but they complete each others wonderfully.
Clamp loves to play with dualism, of course, but Seishirou and Subaru especially play along those lines. I get annoyed when I hear referred to it as good and evil. That's not Seishirou and Subaru. The point's about empathy vs sympathy. Subaru who is so much concerned about what other feels that he never cares about what he wants (such as not moving from the path of a woman with a knife etc.) and Seishirou who never felt anything for someone. In a way, they are both as inhuman... only together do they become whole.
But back to my point; Tokyo Babylon is a take on the myth of Babel, which is a tragedy of miscommunication, about how most of the time, people are strangers to each others. It's about intimacy, about the way you can never truly know someone. And that's Seishirou and Subaru... both their first meeting and their last occurs with words, all so important words, taken away by the winds... and Subaru is left to wonder.
What a beautiful metaphore for human interaction.
Then, there's the passage ritual approach. Seishirou as Death is the man who marks, shapes, and transforms Subaru from young child to become the new Sakurazukamori. Babel, again, as the Gate to Heaven. Because Subaru hanged to the tree is between heavens and earth, and the Rainbow Bridge is the one road to Asgard in nordic mythology. Separation, marge (in-between space), and reintegration (the window frame at the end of v16, and the window-gate frame at the end of v17 to mark that Subaru has entered through the gate after Rainbow Bridge) Ascension as a motif to completion of a human being, who is born in pain, in love, in death, and baptized in blood. I have no doubt, never had any, that Seishirou knew killing him would have such an effect on Subaru. And yet, despite that, I'm not sure Seishirou was aware Subaru loved him... isn't it strange ? I saw someone else argued that it had to be meaningful that Subaru never had the time to declare himself to Seishirou in TB, and that he keeps his wishes secret for so long.
Maybe he didn't care. But he had Subaru in mind as a possible successor for a long time, and was shaping him for the role for so long I think.
I fell in love with SeixSub at the end of Tokyo Babylon, when Seishirou (smiling so serenely) revelled himself. That was such a perfect scene, so wrong on so many levels for Subaru. Showing love as something that messes people up, that is not good and can sometimes indeed be very selfish and petty (not to mention jealous), that's something I adore.
Love and death too. Okay, that's all over X in general, but Seishirou and Subaru get a palm. "I love you so kill me so I can mean something to you" ouch. ouch. I don't have a very 'Subaru' personnality by any mean, but I totally understand his way of thinking there. Subaru had nothing he cared about, not for himself, before he met Seishirou. Therefore Seishirou is the one thing most important for him. And Subaru hates himself - all the more after Hokuto's death of course, but he probably did before.
It's such an uneven relationship. It warms my little SMist heart ^^
And yet... and yet I find Seishirou to be more pathetic than Subaru. Because Seishirou wouldn't allow himself to feel for anyone (and when he did, that was only to get killed) and that's even worse than feeling pain or sadness. That's where the balance comes back in their relationship. Subaru can feel, can care for people, can be kind where Seishirou cannot. He can find a place of power, of freedom within the ties of his love by accepting Seishirou totally as what it is (that's what his wish means : getting killed by Seishirou is the only act of love he can make - and it's perfectly passive) where everything Seishirou does is to change Subaru. Argh I have a hard time expressing this ^^

[wingblossom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! This was fascinating to read. ^^. I have no idea about Nordic mythology and what it represents, but it sounds really convincing the way you put it.

Completely agree about Tokyo Babylon being a tragedy of miscommunication; I think the quote, "People do evil...because they are really all alone," sums it up best. Loneliness and isolation are principal, which is partly why the story is so heartbreaking. :( X is more epic, with a chance for a partially uplifting ending, but TB is just damning. Even the hope [what's left of it, especially by the end] in TB is a bitter thing itself.

One question, though: couldn't it also incorporate the idea of dashed hopes and dreams? I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks this way, but I always saw Seishirou as the embodiment of cruel, heartless Tokyo itself, and Subaru (in the beginning of the story) as the antithesis thereof. And throughout the tankoubon, the morality of each case became more complex and gray -- the questions posed by the stories grew more and more difficult to answer, until you hit the "fooled you, stupid shoujo reader, there is no answer BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD!" ending.

The weight of the cases would have finally crushed Subaru, even if Seishirou hadn't. And the tragedy of seeing Subaru's character utterly destroyed is a thousand times more heartwrenching then seeing characters (sometimes intriguing, generally sympathetic, but often underdeveloped) approach inevitable deaths. Metaphorical death vs. literal death, if you will. ^^;. And since I'm evil, this is partly the appeal of SxS, alongside with the passionate obsession. It's like "I only have eyes for you"...wait, bad metaphor. XD

About Seishirou and Subaru both seeming inhuman: Hokuto herself said she encouraged the two of them together because she wanted Subaru to have something that he wanted for himself, that he put above all else, others be damned. Even when Subaru wanted to become a vet, he never really seemed as though his heart was in it -- he was too swayed by the wishes of others (according to her).

The tragedy of this is that it DID happen. In the most destructive way possible.

So would one actually regard Subaru as more humanized in X, as opposed to Tokyo Babylon? Not sure where I stand on this: Sakurazukamori!Subaru is certainly a hollow shell of a man, but prior X16, there is a burning conflict between desire and hatred. One could argue that these emotions are more intense and "alive" than TB!Subaru's, who rarely, if ever, expresses anger or discontent.

I understand why you see Seishirou as more pathetic than Subaru: he binds himself in a manner that can only inevitably lead to his downfall. It's only at the very end that we see a glimmer of anything remotely suggesting otherwise. Would have to agree with Kelsey that he's made of stupid on this one. XD
(realize this heavily emphasizes TB, not X, but the former is what made the ship for me)

I should stop rambling -- I'm completely off topic. ^^;. And it's your soapbox, not mine! My thoughts are completely scattered today.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

You kidding ? I love discussing this kind of topic, and that included having people answer me ! And your thoughts on the subject are totally mindblowing ! That soapbox is big enough ...

Even the hope [what's left of it, especially by the end] in TB is a bitter thing itself.
Yes, I agree... how ever, even if bitter, there's a part of sweetness in it. The note of hope in TB, that's the conversation with Hokuto, Subaru remembers in front of the mirror in Annex. "It's because we are different beings that we can care of each others" And the importances of words... of saying "thank you", "hello" etc. in everyday life that makes people intimate.
That's right there in what Hokuto said, and that's the answer to the tragedy of Babel.
If people were not different, others to each others, if they had no such trouble communicating, knowing what others felt... they could not love each others.
But then, I love me a bittersweet ending.

I always saw Seishirou as the embodiment of cruel, heartless Tokyo itself
Totally agree ! Though I'm not sure Subaru is the reverse exactly. TB draws a pretty bleak picture of Modern Tokyo, but Subaru's strength is also being able to see the best in everyone, their kindness and courage even when they do wrong things. Both Subaru and Seishirou represents Tokyo, IMO, what's best and what's worst in Tokyo.

the questions posed by the stories grew more and more difficult to answer, until you hit the "fooled you, stupid shoujo reader, there is no answer BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD!" ending.
lol yes they are. I love how morally complex TB is... it's an amazing masterpiece, thematically speaking. I'm not sure, though, that's the moral of the story... that there is no answer.
I think Clamp in general think that people make their own destinny, walk their own path, and that you can't really judge if you're not in their stead (one of the leitmotiv of TB is that no one but the person can decide of their own happiness after all), and in a way that's repeated in Rainbow Bridge. Fuuma, who sees people's wish, said that, in a way, he didn't think those people were unhappy. And in a way, I believe him.
I don't think Seishirou was made of stupid... I think he got exactly what he wanted - and very selfishly at that ! And Subaru got to know that he meant something to Seishirou, which was what he wanted. Rainbow Bridge, in that way, is an apotheosis, the place where they can meet. Oh so twisted, but that's why I love this pairing, ne ?
Sometimes happiness can be a very strange thing.
Though I think you're right that disulisionment and dashed dreams is one of the main theme of TB. I'm not sure how it fits with the rest though... Any idea ?
And since I'm evil, this is partly the appeal of SxS, alongside with the passionate obsession. It's like "I only have eyes for you"...wait, bad metaphor. XD
lol ! yes. Right there with you ^^

Hokuto herself said she encouraged the two of them together because she wanted Subaru to have something that he wanted for himself, that he put above all else, others be damned.
YES ! That's exactly what I was thinking about !

So would one actually regard Subaru as more humanized in X, as opposed to Tokyo Babylon?
It's hard to imagine Subaru if he hadn't meet Seishirou, isn't it ?
Okay, I agree, even that way, Subaru would have become little by little very unhappy. Too much sadness to deal with, too much guilt, and too much abnegation.
The Subaru who's clinging dearly to his wish is after all, a Subaru that finds the way to survive, no matter what, so that he can catch Seishirou and get killed by him.
Not to say that Seishirou did him a favour, but without him, Subaru probably would have let himself die in the same way he didn't step away from the path of that woman in the hospital a long time ago
So yeah, I think that Subaru is more alive, more human, more complete.
Even Sakurazukamori!Subaru, in a way, is more complete than he was before. Because, at last, he's at peace.
I cannot see the eye thing as not a symbol of synthesis between the yin and the yang that Seishirou and Subaru were.

[su-chan.livejournal.com]

I was absolutely fascinated reading this. I couldn't have expressed it as good as you did ;_;

Separation, marge (in-between space), and reintegration (the window frame at the end of v16, and the window-gate frame at the end of v17 to mark that Subaru has entered through the gate after Rainbow Bridge) O_O; that was the reason why in X17 Subaru is drawn through that window, I always wondered, looked so 'out-of-place' or 'done-in-purpose' that picture ^_^ but I never related it to the previous window... Clamp will always surprise me XD

I'm going to read it again, loved it so much and I understand why you had so hard time writing this, SxS are whatever but easy to explain ^_~ thx.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

^^ I always have fun rambling on those subjects, glad you found my thoughts entertaining ;)

Well, at least the window thing is my theory, and it works with the previous symbolism i could find. ^^

[halcyon-libra.livejournal.com]

Fuuma/Kamui. <3

Great choice of music btw. :D

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

hehe yeah it's lovely ^_^

FuumaxKamui is, even more than for Seishirou and Subaru, a ship I love for the ship's sake and not for the character. Because, boy, how I don't understand either of these characters !
Okay, you've got Fuuma, with an indecipherable personnality, even before his shift. He doesn't speak much ("like all animals") but he acts all concerned about Kamui and Kotori. Cool. Have no clue about what's in his mind. And then you have suber-brattish!Kamui who's got an attitude because hey! it's the end of the world but he couldn't care less. Apparently. And he doesn't like strange albinos blind dreamgazers to spy on him (can't say i disagree) and he even resists Sorata's genkiness (wonders of wonders). Okay, I can deal with that. Nice little archetype too often seen in shoujo.
Then bam. DID HE JUST LICK HIS NECK ?! O_o and then they exchange personnality.
Okay, not /really/ but at least they do a pretty 180° shift, with "I am Kamui"!Fuuma in the place of the cool!attitude!welldressed!darkish but sexy!guy, while Kamui becomes a weeping uke. Huh ? So that's all it took to make the brat shud up ? Someone should have licked his neck earlier ! Humm wait... nevermind, I liked him better when he was spunky.
Of course Fuuma is intriguing. The whole wish deal makes him quite the fascinating genius-in-the-box. In a way we can still see traces of Fuuma. He's pretty quiet and dignified. He smiles sadly even as he kills people. He plays with a frog plushie for the sake of a little girl who wants to live. He says that, unlike Seishirou, if he knew the person he loved was to die, he would rather kill him himself. Oh, how interesting. However, let's face it, until Clamp finishes X, we won't know what's the deal about Fuuma.
Kamui gives me a headache. I don't understand him. Kamui doesn't understand himself, of course, so that doesn't help. But Kamui, selfishly, wants Fuuma to live on, and to become the Fuuma he knew again, no matter how Fuuma might feel about that whole deal.
Which reminds me of Fuuma reaction when Natuku died, his confrontation with Karen. People wishing to die for others, but if killing people was bad, why did we forget that, what mattered ? As Karen might wish to die for someone's sake, even if it might make others sad.
I have one theory, that when Kamui picked his side, a part of his personnality, his Shadow Self, the part of him that wanted the world to die, that wanted to destroy himself, came into Fuuma, and that's why Fuuma says he is Kamui.
Kamui's other self.
But what I love in this ship, apart from this whole strange esoteric situation, IS the whole neck-leaking, wires-bondage and mindfucking... I admit it, I find it to be very hot ;)
And of course chibi Kamui, who is so lost, so sweet and so puppyish, with big brother Fuuma is also very, very cute ^_^

[sidecharacter.livejournal.com]

*twitch* Umm.. let's see, people took the ones more thought of. So maybe.. Kurogane x Fai? Not sure if you like that or even read TSUBASA. If not.. er.. just give a random pairing and I shall be impressed either way.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Kurogane and Fai are just fun. Wonderful, lovely fun.
I love both of them. I love Kurogane for his grumpiness, doggy like loyalty to Tomoyo-him, violence-revelling and unabashed grayness. He's just adorable.
Of course Fye loves to tease him. Of course.
Fay, easy like the wind, smiling and elusive. In a way, I feel very sad for Fay. I'm not sure why, but there's something very sad about him. He's a coward, isn't he ? I think it's so very interesting when Kurogane says he's the kind of people he hates the most.
I love, love, love hate/love ships, bickering ships, antagonistic ships and they fit right there. Right away their interactions made me know I'd love them. (and i do ! I do !)
they're very, very cute. They leads themselves to angst too (so many shady space in their past, ne ?) and they're both much greyer than the kiddies ^_^
They spend so much time arguing in such a funny way, but they also make a great team when they set their mind to it. Like they've known each others for a long time. I like that a lot.
I like how they observes each others. The way that when Syaoran makes an obsersion, the other is like, "yes, of course he is like that, haven't you noticed ?" XD
They parallel each others of course. Fye as an easygoing white wearing magician who flees his king (whom he possibly loves); Kurogane as a badly-tempered black clothed warrior who was sent away by his princess (whom he possibly loves)
Fye is obviously not as nice as he might let on, and Kurogane not as mean as we might believe.
And they're both very, very ruthless
In a way, i think they both believe... something about themselves, they've both been hurt, I believe, and they both don't believe themselves to be worthy of... love. Possibly. They represents second chances for each others.
And that's probably why I love that pairing so much ^^

[sidecharacter.livejournal.com]

Very nice. So nice that I'm keeping it in my Inbox to read over and over, and over. I would love to write a fanfic about them, but I can't because we know so very little about them. It seems almost wrong to try to write something about a character you don't fully understand yet. You can guess on their motives but utnil it is clearly said what those are, I think I shall wait. @_@; Probably going to be waiting a long time to write a fanfic. WAH~!

Anyways, I demand another. XD Do you read xxxHolic? I wasn't sure if you did. Either way, which do you think about either, or preferably both because your rants are so interesting I love spouting more, DomekixWatanuki and/or WatanukixHimawari? ^^;; Sorry I hope you don't mind me asking this again.. meep..

[littledust.livejournal.com]

OH HO HO let's hear your take on SayaxTohru. :3

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, it's hard to say anything you haven't said already in your own answer ^_^
I do like the both of them. I don't love Tohru as much as I do Tokiko, but I do appreciate her. She's got a certain wildness, fighting spirit in my mind. And proud. For some reason, she sounds very fierce and willful. After all that's a woman who raized a little boy whom we never met the father - that's probably not so easy to do in Japan, at the time Kamui was raised.
Saya appears so much more soft and fragile - and she's so much not. Because I have no doubt that it's always Saya who took the decisions, who made the first step, as she decided to die instead of Tohru. In X so far, Saya is the only character we know of who twisted Fate, for her love, and that's very interesting.
Their interactions had to be very interesting.
Other reasons I love Tohru and Saya together, is, it's an adulterin love, and that's very rare to be shown like that in a manga by Clamp. It's not all shown to be sordid, only a tragic story that took in its intracities three complex people and their children. Family secrets... gotta love those and the potential for angst (that wasn't very much exploited in X too bad... someone ought to do it : Kamui and co reaction when learning of it)
And of course there's the sinner aspect of that relationship. Oh, how I love mermaid!Saya who says quietly that she was damned for what she did, and that Kotori will die for the one she loved as well. Well, Saya is crazy... but she always got what she wanted, didn't she ? ^_^
But I admit I never would thought much about this pairing without your own fics ^^ they're lovely (I think Coming of an Age is my favourite of them... so gorgeous *_*)

icon

[halcyon-libra.livejournal.com]

So, I intended to make you an icon with very readable text. ...yeah.

I can always tweak it or make something entirely different if you just hate it. ^^; Let me know.

Re: icon

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh ! Pretty ! *_*
That text is readable enough for me, and yay for hallulujah quotes ! <333

This is just lovely, I adore it ! Thank you so much *snuggles*

Re: icon

[halcyon-libra.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I'm glad! XD And I just love that particular quote; very S/S to me. ^^;

You're welcome! <3

[chaineddove.livejournal.com]

Ooh, my insomnia is catching. I think you got it from me; I'm not sleeping either...

I want a Tatsumi/Watari rant. Because we're winning you over slowly but surely, dangit!

*dies thinking about the panty shots*

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Well, I've always been sorta insomniac. It comes and goes ^^;;

haha... Watari and Tatsumi... well, Yami is one of those serie I didn't have any favourite pairings at first. I love most of the characters, but there's no one there I can think "Ooooh they're so cute together <3"
However, fandom being fandom, when i started looking for fics, I had soon to realize most of them works by shîps, and that most of those ships bored me to tears.
Sure, Hisoka and Tsuzuki are cute, and I'm sure they'll be good for each others, but for some reasons, I don't want to read about them.
Anyway, when I was seeing the Watari/Tatsumi pairing, I was blinking and thinking "Huh ? Why the fuck do you put those guys together ? Just cuz there's 4 main characters and you put Tsuzuki with Hisoka you have to put the other in a pairing ? Bah !"
Time passed, and it's only when I started really, really liking the TatsumixTsuzuki pairing that I fell in love with TatsumixWatari (show you how twisted I am); simply because it started making me love Tatsumi, and understanding him a great deal more, enough to apprediate his interraction with wacky Watari.
So, I will love reading TatsumixWatari, if it's a fic that aknowledges how much Tsuzuki means for Tatsumi (and will probably always mean, let's face it), in the same way that I can love Kamui and Subaru together, only when the fic aknowledge their past history with Seishirou, Fuuma and Kotori. Except without as much angst.
You know one of the thing I really appreciate with them ? It's the feel that... this is a grown up romance. It's not full scale passion, it's not a sickly obsession, it's not a dysfunctionnal mutual dependant relationship. They're not hurting each others with their love, nor are they healing each others exactly - on contrary, I'd say, they both need a bit of time to be independant individuals before they can get together for it to work. But it's love, all the same, love I can believe in because it's grounded, sweet, funny and sexy.
They have very interesting dynamics of course. I love Watari with Tatsumi because only Watari has the right frame of mind to be able to tease Tatsumi out of his control-freak habits and to just have some fun; while Tatsumi... well I don't understand Watari as much as I understand Tatsumi, but there's probably also something he can find in Tatsumi. Without it being as bad and catastrophic as Tsuzuki's dependancy, that is. Watari knows his own boundaries and isn't self-destructive i think ^^
And of course it's very funny to watch. I love fics where Watari is chasing after Tatsumi, especially, and putting him out of balance.

[chaineddove.livejournal.com]

It's the feel that... this is a grown up romance. It's not full scale passion, it's not a sickly obsession, it's not a dysfunctionnal mutual dependant relationship. They're not hurting each others with their love, nor are they healing each others exactly - on contrary, I'd say, they both need a bit of time to be independant individuals before they can get together for it to work.

YES! I think that IS part of the main appeal! Let's face it, the majority of relationships that get hyped to high heaven are sick and twisted and YOUNG. So, so young and idealistic and... YOUNG (and yes, I realize I love many like this, but...) You don't GET that sense with these two. They both seem fairly stable and comfortable in their own skins, and that is so RARE to see.

Watari has the right frame of mind to be able to tease Tatsumi out of his control-freak habits and to just have some fun; while Tatsumi... well I don't understand Watari as much as I understand Tatsumi, but there's probably also something he can find in Tatsumi.

As, you know, the scary Watari clone person... it seems to me like Tatsumi offers the following things: someone who can intellectually keep up (I'm not saying the rest of the cast is stupid, but there's a lot of space between intelligent and brilliant) and also someone who can check him. It's rather like what a good partnership needs to work-the strengths of one balancing the other and the acknowledgement that, "Well, yes, Tatsumi is uptight, but in the end he's right more often than he's wrong so listening to him when he tells me I'm being too ridiculous even for me may be a good thing..." Not to mention, Watari likes risk. He likes crazy, wacky, no-way-in-hell-will-that-work things. The idea of loosening up Tatsumi would really appeal to that side of him, because Tatsumi is not easily thrown off balance (I will leave out the musical chairs, but you know I am giggling). And the challenge of doing it is part of the attraction, I think.

Also, in the end, someone like Watari is ridiculous because he likes pushing those around him, to see just how far he can go before someone PUSHES BACK. He's a very independent person on the one hand, but this personality type (read: just like mine) is actually searching for someone who is willing and able to resist and, if need be overpower. Outwardly dominant personality type and all, he'd get easily bored with someone who wasn't stronger in at least some aspects. No friction, no risk, no interest. That's my take on the reason Watari would chase Tatsumi (aside for the desire to get him out of those starched-up business suits, and you KNOW he's thinking it).

Besides, watching him chase Tatsumi is just... fun. Good-natured, cheerful, wacky fun. Who ELSE would try to get Tatsumi to play musical chairs?

*climbs off her soapbox, embarrassed*

[heavensgardener.livejournal.com]

Alright...I want to hear your opinion Clow/Yuuko and Clow/Yue. I'd ask for your spiel on Touya/Yuki (Yue), but I haven't done my rant yet.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Woot, Clow ships ^^

I like both those ships; and I consider them to be canon. I don't usually go out of my way to read them, but when I find a good one, I read them with delight (especially since i adore Yue and Yuuko)
I think it's very interesting how every SO Clow/Eriol had were Moon-aligned : Yue, Yuuko and Kaho. I wonder if that was a willful decision made according to balancing theories of magic, or just a natural result of his own Solar personnality. In a way, I think Clow was too much a control freak to leave that kind of things to hazard.
When Clow created Yue, he created his anima. It's so obvious ! In a way, it's interesting that he made him male (Anima are typically female) I wonder if he was trying to avoid falling in love with him... Little good it did him if so ^_^
It's so obvious Yue loved Clow absolutly, devotly and desperatly there's not much to say about it. It's in both Yue and Yukito personnality to love with boundless abandon, to give everything of themselves to the one they love. And it must have hurt him infinitly when Clow died/abandonned him. I think that explains for a lot of his icy behaviour later one. I'm pretty sure he was much more like Yukito in behaviour before that. (And that why I love tamchronin's Take me so much ^^)
I wonder how Clow felt about falling in love with Yue. I don't think that it was what he had planned... for that reason it is an interesting ship; Clow giving in his feelings despite the problems he might see in it.
It's funny since i made that icon : I've been having corset!fishnet!Clow singing Sweet Transvestite >_>;; my mind works in strange way but "I've been making a man/with good looks and tan/it's good for relieving the... tension" Okay, now Yue is glaring again, so i'll stop.
But because of course, there's quite a few issues in this pairing. Clow created Yue, he is Yue's lord and master, his source of life ! It's all incestuous and unbalanced, isn't it ?
In a way it goes with their impulse (Sun and Moon, again, is very inscribed in their personnality) but I think Clow wasn't totally happy with this situation (or was wary of his own impulse, because though he was a proud and controlling magician, I think he was always careful not to abuse his powers as he had seen others do) because the others ships we see him in, Kaho and Yuuko, are very independant, strong women of their own right.
Not that Yue isn't powerful of course, but how much would he had dared to oppose Clow's decisions in general ?
Well, of course I'm always wary of that kind of unbalanced ships (I mean, as non wrongromanticangtsblood ships) and that's what also bothered me with all the teacher - student pairings in CCS... I don't think it's ever healthy but Clamp might obviously disagree.
Yue on the other hand... well the fact that Yukito falls in love with Touya, and given that Touya also have a very protecting and controlling attitude toward the ones he loves, shows that's partly what he is looking for in a relationship. But because they were best friends for so long, they are also very much more on an equal basis.
And isn't it fascinating that Clow had planned for Yue to love Sakura ? Aaah... how like Clow to plan for whom his ex-lover would get with after his death, and how interesting that he thought that of course it would be the next magician in charge of him XD And how cool it is from Yue/Yukito's part that they chose, on that topic, to defy Clow's will and stay with Touya.
Children, how they grow up ^^
That's one of the thing I like best, you know, in CCS, that most couple are not the first love, that most of the main characters actually end up with other people than the one they first had a crush on.
That's very not often the case in Clamp, but I love that kind of stuff. People change and mature, and they realize sometimes there's someone else for them... and no matter how much they loved the first person - and can you ever stop loving your first love at all ? - there's still life, still love waiting for them.
That's a very positive message IMO.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

And it's funny but when I love a ship (such as how much I love TouyaxYuki/Yue) it's also because I love all their previous ships that shaped them and made them who they were. So I can't love Touya/Yuki without loving Clow/Yue ^^

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Clow/Yuuko, now that's a whole other kind of fish, isn't it ? ^^

It's a fun ship, especially because it had to be a very antagonistic one. I can imagine them bickering all the time, and playing practical jokes on each others. (it probably helped that they both have a pretty wicked sense of humour) I can imagine them easily as people who argued and broke up a thousand times before going back together. Had to be a wild ride.
Of course at the same time, they don't really need each others. I mean they're both very powerful wizards - possibly the most powerful out there. In a way, that's probably why they got attracted to each others : must be difficult to find equals, people you can relate to, when you're at that level of power. And they're also both very manipulative (in a very different way, granted) and very proud, so they probably bruised each others' ego very often ^^
Also, they had to be careful, I can't imagine that they ever trusted the other completly, that they could abandon themselves in the relationship fully - and that is probably why the relationship eventually didn't work.
But they must have loved to tease each others ^^
Well, you know how much I love and identify with Yuuko, so let me look at the ship from that point of view.
When I first grasped XXX holic, I had to blink and to laugh : "Wow... Clamp wrote my Mary Sue into their story !"
My Mary Sue, as in, the idealized vision of myself I had invented to get into any story i'd fancy to see myself in to interract with the world and characters. I made one, and kept her roughly the same all through my teenagehood until i found out about fanfics and what a Mary Sue was. And she's very, very much like Yuuko.
Not only because of the Dimension-hopper deal, which my Mary Sue definitly was.
But Clow... well, I have never looked at Clow that way. Partly because he's mentor-guy in CCS which are a type of character i find very un-sexy (I was always deadly bored by Gandalf for exemple)
But Clow with Yuuko, that changes everything. You know I've read fics where it's Clow who teaches Yuuko a lot, and gets the better of her as far as teasing goes, and I can't agree with that.
I can imagine Clow as the cocky young guy with a revolutionary outlook on magic while Yuuko was the traditionnal one, however.
And when I think of it that way... and at how manipulative, and tricky Clow was then. When I ponder about young Clow, who belonged to both the western world and the eastern one, and to neither, who was probably quite angsty on its own right, but hid it very well under his usual smiling composure; who had so much to proove, and so much power to do so, and who was probably just that away from turning bad; I think meeting Yuuko was salutory.
Because, no matter what, Yuuko's /fair/. She can act horribly, but she doesn't cheat, she trades in equal bargains.
And she probably did learn a lot from him, and hated it, of course ^_^
And that kind of relationship, as a matter of fact, is the kind of I had given to my Mary Sue ^^;; it's scary (nope, my MS wasn't the kind who went around and seduced my favourite character... well, she wasn't against sleeping with them if they were hot, but actually her one true love was a character I had made up as well)
You know it's funny, I had never really given that much though about those ships, and i had read before that Touya was like Clow in fics, and it had surprised me at the time. ("Huh ? Clow ? Touya ? What the hell are they supposed to have in common ?") But now that you got me to think about it, I have to agree that young!Clow was probably a lot like Touya in some aspect ^_^
so there, that endth my rambling. Thanks for making me think about that !

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean by sleep. I am always amazed when I read on characters ( or real people) falling asleep in 5 minutes, no matter how tired I am, never happens, not that easily. I love sleeping, and I got no problem falling asleep again when I wake in the morning or middle of the night, but I guess I just don´t lose consciousness, control of my thoughts easily...

[azure-empress.livejournal.com]

I seem to have trouble sleeping only very rarely. Normally I dose off within moments of laying down to rest.

A certain somebody sometimes complains that when he is laying all excited after us being together, it is somehow annoying to have me just roll over and begin snoring soundly.

Bah. He should realize how incredible a trust in him this signifies. Now, if only I can figure out a way to insure that HE gets to lie on the wet spot. ^^

Swordspoint

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

There were a few Swordspoint stories written for this year's Yuletide challenge.

Re: Swordspoint

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much for the link ! *glomps*