Argh.

"So, where're ya headed?"

I wonder who decided that I wanted to be flirted with on my way home from school. I also wonder what possesses high school boys to think that I would ever be remotely interested in their smoker, egostistical selves. Do I look desperate? Do I seem like the kind of college girl whose only wish is to get a boyfriend, no matter how young the guy?

"Home," I answer to Leather-Jacket Smoking Bum as I stand in the bus shelter, trying to get out of the bone-chilling wind, looking up the street as I try to spot the bus.

LJSB steps into sight. He exhales, and the wind makes the smoke whirl into my face. I resist the urge to vomit, but I know he must have spotted the way my chest heaved through my coat as I desperately held in my nausea. Also, my burrowing my face into my fur collar must have been a tell-tale sign.

"Do you live far?" He asks, rather than extinguishing his cigarette, even though public decency typically commands that you smoke outside rather than in the presence of an obvious non-smoker.

I can't see LJSB's eyes. He's wearing large, black, mirror shades. I refuse to breathe in more air than what is strictly necessary. The smoke is absolutely intolerable, and god, it reeks. I answer, "Not really."

"Near the 'view?" He asks, clearly talking about the terminus for the line we're waiting on. He inhales a long breath of cigarette.

"Between here and there," I answer, as vaguely as possible, claiming the obvious. He nods, as though he knows exactly what place I'm talking about. Idiot.

He smirks. "So, uh, how old're ya?"

I look at him pointedly. He looks around my age. "Eighteen." I thought it'd be obvious enough, considering I can only come from the nearby college and the only students there are 20 years-old at most. I also want him to know I'm a legal adult, thinking it'll impress him and make him back off, like I've seen others do.

He nods, smiles larger, then exhales a long plume of smoke. My grimace is obvious, and he suddenly asks, "Hey, is my cig' bothering ya?"

I give him a flat look and resist the urge to hurl. God, it stinks. "Yeah, kinda."

He looks apologetic and throws it to the ground, extinguishing it with his foot. "Oh sorry. I make a point not to bother people with the smoke."

I briefly wonder why he didn't ask me for permission before lighting up, but it's pointless now, I suppose.

"So," he continues to inquire, and I wonder why the bus isn't there yet, "you in college?"

I refrain from rolling my eyes. My messenger school bag is strapped to my shoulder, and I just told him I was eighteen. There aren't a thousand places for me to come home from, are there? "Yes."

"Where?"

I vaguely indicate my college's direction, even though we can't see it from my bus stop. He nods slowly. "Cool. I'm in coll― I still have a year to go before going to college."

I notice the slip-up, but since I'm not interested, it's of no relevance to me. He could have lied and I wouldn't have given a damn. The guy's a smoker: the smell alone is a turn-off.

"A year to go?" I ask, trying not to sound disdainful, because I have nothing against high schoolers... only guys who think they're upshot with college girls when they're still in high school.

He nods. "Yeah. I'm in high school." He hastens to add, "But, yeah, I know I look older." He taps his heel against the salt-covered pavement, as though he's dislodging dirt. "Guys my age, they're so perverted, you know, but I took this maturity test at the psychologists after my grandma passed away," he looks up at me as coolly as possible, "and they evaluated that I had the mentality of a twenty year-old. I was fifteen."

I refrain from laughing out loud. Twenty year-olds, boy, are far from mature, is what I want to say. But instead I opt for the more off-putting, "I took an online test and was judged to have the mind of a forty-five year-old woman."

He looks at me strange, but then he shakes himself and says, "Cool, I guess. Y'know, I skipped grade 8."

The bus is pulling up. I want to roll my eyes. What's he doing, trying every impression technique he can manage? "Funny," I answer. "My brother skipped a year too, to follow me more closely."

I mentally calculate that my brother is probably older (definitely taller) than this guy. I mean, if he still has a year to go, and he skipped a year, than he's probably my brother's age or one year younger.

"Speaking of my brother," I say, walking out the bus shelter and onto the sidewalk in the cold, "at this time, he'll be catching this line two stops down." I hope to put LJSB off, but he doesn't let it be.

"That's cool," he says again. "So, what're you studying in college?"

"Arts and literature," I say, hoping that he'll feel some sort of disdain for it. Instead, he just nods, as if he feels the gangsta sort of respect for me. I can't believe the tenacity of this guy.

"That's cool. I want to study psychology."

I sit in the bus. He sits beside me. Dear god. Soon, though, the bus drives down to my brother's stop. I see my six foot-tall brother standing there, looking bored out of his mind. He's surrounded by a small group of people from our high school (well, it was my high school before I left for college). The moment he enters the bus, I greet him and ask him all about his day, and give LJSB no more opening, even though he's staring me through.

My brother and I get off at our stop, and, at long last, I am free of LJSB.

My brother, far from being stupid, smirks and asks, "So, what's that dude's name?"

In the middle of my deserted street, I howl, "I DUNNO BUT HE'S WEIRD AND HE'S EVEN YOUNGER THAN YOU AND HE'S CREEPY AND HE'S A SMOKER!"

He scowls. "That is gross. Why was he stalking you?"

I shrug. "I dunno. He just decided that I was a trapped target in the bus shelter, unable to escape out into the cold."

Lord Llama laughs. "Sucker."

Let's just say, I knew high school boys tried to pick up older girls. Many guys in my grade used to try.

I just can't believe a guy would actually try his luck on me. I mean, please.

He better not be waiting for me at the bus stop next Friday.

Love,
CM

OMG!

The impossible has occurred!

As of March 10th, 2007, at roughly 9:00PM, my profile page hit the 20,000 views!!!


PROOF:

I don't KNOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE, BUT YOU JUST MADE MY DAY.

Not to mention Only in Hyrule struck the 40,000 hits a while back.

*whoooooooooo*

LOVE,
CM

P.S. I'll try to get a new oneshot posted soon, as thanks. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at the plot...

Told by looking into email inboxes and stringing the mails together, we find out that Link, genius administrator at Time Corporations, just got a smoking hot secretary. Not only does this cause an uproar, it also keeps him from focusing on his work properly. The story includes, amongst other things, discussions about panties, threats with scimitars, strawberry snacks and shameless wagers.

In fact, the whole story is pretty much shameless and should not be read by an audience under at LEAST 13 years of age. Not that ratings ever stop anyone nowadays.

Triple Fs...?

Edit: Summit, my latest three-part oneshot, is out.

Other edit: Dear Internet, STOP ADVERTISING SEXY BABES IN MY AREA. I'M A GIRL. I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT SEXY BABES IN MY AREA. The only sexy babe in my area that I care about it ME (and my ego).

I don't know why the conversation around the dinner table regularly swerves to how uneventful my social life is. It's like the fact that I'm not a party animal is both a source of joy and stress to my mother, and she's torn between those extremes.

On one hand I'm not at risk of dying in a drunken orgiastic car accident at 2:00 AM, but on the other hand my social life pales in comparison to my brother's, who has revealed himself a fast-learning snowboarder who goes boarding with his friends every second day because his girlfriend is visiting family down the St-Lawrence and being inactive at home makes him moody.

"Well at least I'm not getting any venereal diseases. In fact, I'm plain not getting any," I say, using my fork to mash my potatoes.

Mom and Dad laugh. Lord Llama is out boarding today, so it's just the three of us. Mom and Dad think I'm very funny, even when I'm being a psychotic and overdramatic spazz. They think that my lack of a social life is mostly a blessing for their nerves.

"I'm just glad," Mom says, "that you don't bring boyfriends home. I hate having to avoid the basement whenever your brother's with his girlfriend."

Because of course my brother and his girlfriend love snogging (oops, I meant 'snuggling'), a fact that used to traumatize me until I learned that I could double the volume of my earphones and ignore the sound of their smooching. I'm a very stubborn person so I often stick to the basement, even when they're there, and my mother expects me to chaperone them (as a joke, of course).

Um, excuse me, but ew. I am grateful that I can't see the couch from where I sit, because otherwise... ick.

"Right Mom. You're glad."

"Oh, CM, you don't want a boyfriend. They're too much trouble."

"Oh really? I'm sure Dad concurs." I turn to my Dad, hopefully.

"I'm too much trouble," he agrees with Mom. "Really. I ought to be cast out of the house."

"See?" Mom looks at me with wide eyes that say I-told-you-so.

That's the problem with my parents. They have no sense of self-worth or something. Especially when they have to prove a point to their crazy daughter.

"Geez, way to encourage the arrival of grandchildren," I tease them.

Mom rolls her eyes and makes a face. "Please. I'm too young for that. So are you. Be glad: no boyfriend means no potential pregnancy... and no potential venereal diseases."

I grimace. "Urgh, Mom, please don't make me throw this carrot at you."

"You wouldn't dare. Don't you agree, darling?" She turns to my dad. Dad just makes a 'hmph' noise; he's eating a meatball. Mom turns back with a sort of genial look. "You know, your Dad is fully house-broken. I trained him."

At this, Dad nearly chokes on his meatball as he tries not to laugh too hard. Mom shoots him a dirty look and he sobers up.

"Right."

"It's true!" Mom leans forward and gives me a secretive, pointed look. "You want the secret to finding the perfect man?"

I press a hand over my heart and feign surprise. "There's a secret??" Dad downs a tall glass of milk to ease his previous choking, and he gives my mother a completely amused look.

"I wonder," he just says.

Mom ignores him. "It's really simple. All you need to do is find a guy who possesses the following traits: smart, rich, handsome, and European."

My dad laughs out loud at that one, and Mom doesn't bother shooting him any look of any kind. She's staring at me intently, as though she expects me to be suddenly illuminated.

I flatly stare back. "Smart, rich, handsome and European."

"That's right!" Mom sits straight in her chair again and spears a potato. "It worked for me!"

I glance at Dad. He doesn't look up from his plate, carefully lining up carrots and piling them on his fork to make one big bite. "You were rich?" I ask, half-teasing and half-curious.

"Before you and your brother came into my life―hey!" Dad shoots Mom a mini-glare (he's too nice to summon any cruel-looking expression). "Give me back my milk carton!"

Mom ignores his request and says, "Just four factors, CM. Smart ―you can guess why―, rich ―you can also guess why―, handsome ―because you have to present him to your parents― and European."

I roll my eyes. When Mom and Dad met, he had only just recently purchased a red BMW cash. He was also quite handsome (I saw pictures) and he was considered a mechanical and electronics genius engineer... I guess you can say my Mom struck gold, for a humble office worker. But, "Pray tell why he must be European?"

Dad smirks at Mom from across the table. "Yeah, honey, why must he be European?"

Mom shoots Dad a flat look. He seems humorously humbled and goes back to his potatoes, though I can see he's still smiling.

Dad's from eastern Europe. Mom claims that it was his exotic accent that did her in (though I'm pretty sure the red BMW had something to do with it as well). He still has a pretty thick accent, in spite of having lived in Canada with us for over twenty years.

"Old world folk are higher-class and they're never up to anything bad," she says, airily, though she's trying not to laugh.

"Huh." I roll my eyes again.

"That's not what you were saying―"

"Eat your carrots, sweetie. Your meal might get cold."

Dad chuckles. "Right." He spears another carrot.

"So," I patiently sum up, "you want me to find a guy somewhere in Québec who comes from Europe with money, smarts and looks?"

"That's right," Mom says, grinning. "Montreal's a pretty multicultural city, so you might find one who obeys the Four Fatal Factors. That's when you know you got a real catch."

That's exactly what she said. The Four Fatal Factors. I couldn't believe it. Dad was cackling madly by then, taking another long sip of milk to calm down.

"The Four Fatal Factors?" I put my fork down. "Mom, that's like, so cheesy."

"The Triple Fs, sweetie," she says, waggling a finger knowingly as she finishes her plate. "They're the ultimate guide."

"This is ridiculous," I say. "I think I'm going to go now."

"The Triple Fs, sweetie! Remember the Triple Fs!"

I think I know where my insanity stems from now. I'll admit it's not as comforting as I thought it'd be. Heh.

Love,

CM

Short stuff?? My productive arse!

Is it still a oneshot story if you reached 30 pages of length and it's still not over??

Not to mention it still has no title. Bugger.

Also, I might revise my claim that it won't contain a pairing. Because it does allude to a few pairings. Some of which might be the first ever written (but hopefully not the last, as they're irrepressibly cute―and no you can't know what they are yet because that'd be a spoiler ―and I'm a freak).

(Like Zelda from that one story I wrote.)

(Freak, I mean.)

Though that's not to say that the story will revolve around romance, so I'm not pulling back on that claim or anything. It still centres on Colin. Or on Colin and Talo's observations of Link. So that's good. You'll get your healthy dose of our favourite blonde hero, I promise.

But you'll also get a side-dish of other sketched-out pairings, is all I'm sayin'.

Aside from the impossible length, the other reason it's taking so long is that I'm making sure to research my facts. And you know me: sloppy only hardly cuts it. So I downloaded the Hylia's Visual Guide (though I'll admit it's also to be able to watch any cutscene with hot Link action at any given moment ―gotta love his interactions with Telma in Kakariko) and have based my descriptions on what is in the game.

YES, CM IS VERY MUCH DEDICATED to bringing you the most passable Zelda stories... that she can write. That's not to say they're the best... but at least they're not the worst (I revisited FF.Net today, and though a few pieces were good, plenty more were discouraging... *sob* Am I the only one that finds this despairing??).

And now I'll turn in, because I've been staring at my bloody oneshot (I still need a title, dammit) for the past four hours and the text is becoming too odd for my taste (it's dancing the rumba).

Still, it should be done by the end of next weekend. AND IT'S STILL A ONESHOT. Gah.

Love,
CM

Short post about long stuff.

Finally, the March break has come! I am free for a whole week! Who cares if I have eight projects due for the week when we get back? I can procrastinate like a good girl for now!

That said, I thought I should inaugurate my long week off (they call it 'self-adjustment week'--why, I don't know) with a post, even though I know that by the time it ends, I'll feel that it was all too short. Time flies by too fast.

But hey, you can't do anything about it, so no point mourning.

So much snow fell last night! It was hard to get out of our garage, and the car nearly stalled in the snowdrifts. Good ole memories, except this time the college didn't close down, unlike, like, EVERY OTHER school in the area. That kind of sucked, but I figured I might as well go to class, even though, clearly, the students who'd actually make it to school today would be rare.

As I suspected, half the student population didn't bother rolling out of bed when they heard about the snowstorm. So smart, and frankly, you'd think after living in Québec all my life I'd have gotten the same idea, but whatever. They make nutcases in every part of the world, and this was my crazy way to rebel against the weather.

My comics class was, as a result of being half empty, a lot more cheerful. It's like braving the storm made all the attending students chummier, like we were war veterans who'd fought the same enemy or something. We discussed Peanuts (Charlie Brown and Snoopy, in case you live under a rock), ultimately having a verbal brawl over a Charlie Brown doll, trying to determine who was most worthy of being the Charlie Brown Keeper.

I didn't bother to argue. The snow was still raging outside.

By some unearthly miracle, Kitty (who doesn't even live on the island of Montreal, therefore making the travel in the storm nearly impossible) was there. She looked almost battered, but I had to commend her on her determination.

None of us had eaten anything for breakfast, since reaching the school in time for our first class meant we had to leave extra early, because the snow forced our cars/buses/trains to go slower than usual and it was a matter of reaching the school on time. At least we got something at the cafeteria, so we survived the whole day.

Philosophy class was even worse. We were seven people in the class. Teacher included. So we watched a movie about Freud. It was awful, but now I know I'll never have to endure it again. Don't get me wrong. The content was fine, and the theory was alright (even though I don't think I'm repressing some sort of carnal desire for my dad, because, um, ew?) but the sound/image quality was bad enough to make me turn green. And that's saying something considering my mom watches bad movies for fun.

Oops, I said this would be a short post, didn't I? Well, whatever. I lied.

I started watching Bleach, because watching Naruto (yay for Shippuuden!) obviously wasn't enough to eat all my bandwidth (*sarcasm*). It's stunning how similar those two series are. Sure, the fundamental idea isn't the same, but it always ends up in a battle to determine who is strongest and see who has the most trump cards. Also, upgrading one's skills by doubling or tripling one's initial power is never a surprise: it's a given; not having it would be a blasphemy.

You'd think, in light of this, that I'd just choose one of the two series and stick with it, because once you've seen one, you've seen them all. But hey, that's what's so great about anime series: they're addictive, damn them. You start watching one, and if they hook you on the pilot episode, you're caught FOREVERMORE. Unless it pulls a Death Note on you and you go bonkers because everyone's deduction skills surpass yours ten times, so that you can't relate and choose to drop it before the last volume before you go paranoid.

Thankfully, both Naruto and Bleach contain a decent amount of action and humour to keep me hooked, and they don't make me feel like a moron while still entertaining my tactical side.

Also, the music is catchy.

I think they have the same composers or something (they certainly use the same bands for their theme songs), but what can I say? I like 'em.

... Speaking about more long stuff, I mentioned that I was writing a TP oneshot to get rid of my TP plot bunnies.

And really, talk about a oneshot. It's so long!!! So far, it's not even halfway through and it's already at 13 pages! I might have to divide it, but I'm not sure yet. I figure it's just as well, but geez... If you want more precisions, here's the basic idea.

The story is third person, mostly from Colin's point of view, but loosely so. Set four years after the end of TP, Colin and Talo have both come of age and it's that time for the Hyrule Summit again. With Link, the two boys set out for Hyrule Castle, leaving the Ordona Province for the first time since the end of the shadow era. The city itself is in a festive mood, leading to many friendly (and quirky) encounters. Mostly, the story explores the aftermath and recovery of TP, while trying to study the main characters from Twilight Princess. It's light-hearted and told from the point of view of a boy who has never been to Hyrule Castle before or met most/many of Link's acquaintances.

This oneshot is fun because it takes a slight twist on Colin and Talo, taking into account how they could have changed in four years from the little boys they were to become Link's almost-disciples. They're like tangents of Link himself--one of them is contained and pacifistic, while the other is loud and boisterous, while sharing a sort of friendly competition.

I won't get into more details, but let's say that it's cool. In the story, Link is twenty-two and Colin and Talo are both fifteen. I won't give you the ages of the other guests in the shot, in case that reveals too much. ;P But it's not like you can't guess.

As far as pairings go, I decided to make Link and Ilia remain close friends. In other words, it isn't Ilink. It's also unlikely to develop into any other pairing, seeing as I'm trying to keep the story as plausible and close to TP as possible (remember: nothing happened in the game, dammit!). Will it be boring? No. There are other strong feelings in the story that aren't romance.

And now that I'm done shamelessly advertising myself, I'll get back to it.

Love,

CM