In Simpler Years

Title: The Most Difficult Moment
Fandom/Pairing: High School Musical/Troyella (Troy/Gabriella)
Written For: ryansgirl122 as part of the HSM Fic Exchange hosted by idio_cynic
Characters: Troy, Gabriella
Word Count: 864
Rating: R (but it's a light R)
Summary: After Gabriella quits her job at Lava Springs and tells Troy goodbye, he realizes he needs to change.
Author's Notes: This was a request by ryansgirl122, who was okay with receiving pretty much anything as a gift. So this was where my muse decided to take me. The first time I saw High School Musical 2, the "Go My Own Way" sequence was pretty much established as one of my favourites, and so it's sort of natural that I would write a fic about it. I don't usually do second person point of view, but this seemed to be crying out for it. So I switched it from third to second person fairly early on. It's a light R, for a couple mentions of sex. Hope you enjoy!

( Watching her walk away is the most difficult moment of your life. )

Slacking at work for the win! Well, technically I'm not slacking, since I happen to be on break at the moment, but I am sitting here in the newsroom clicking away on my laptop, so it's sort of slacking. Pseudo-slacking, I suppose you could say. Slacking in disguise. Stealth-slacking. Whatever. It's fun. XD And, yay for getting to use this icon for the first time in this journal! It's my absolute favourite of the HSM ones I have uploaded. I've used it around a few HSM communities, but so far not in my journal itself, so I'm excited about getting to do that. But on to the main point of this post.

Quite recently, I saw an advertisement in troy_gabriella about a pre-holiday High School Musical fic exchange. How does a fic exchange work? It's quite simple really. You submit your name and a few pairings and ratings you're willing to write, along with a few pairings and ratings you'd like to receive, and you get matched up with someone else whose preferences are similar to your own. You write a fic for them. Meanwhile, someone else has gotten matched up with you, and they have to write a fic based on your preferences. It's really fun. So I signed up for the HSM fic exchange, received an email from the host confirming my participation, and all was fine and dandy.

Until, that is, I realized I've never written a word of HSM fanfiction in my life.

Whoops.

To be sure, I'm experienced at the whole fanfiction thing itself. I have about fifty million claims, mostly Star Wars-related, at fanfiction claim communities over on my writing journal, amidala_thrace. It's just that I've never written anything High School Musical-related. I decided the easiest way to get some quick practice was to join one of the aforementioned fanfic claim communities, and since fanfic100 is the largest, I naturally went there first.

Troy/Gabriella, which would have been my first choice, was taken, but Gabriella wasn't, so I submitted for her. And the next day I got a response back, saying my claim had been approved! So I get to write 100 fics focusing on Gabriella, but including other characters too. It will be primarily composed of Troy/Gabriella, but I'm also hoping to do some introspective Gabriella fics.

As with all claim communities, fanfic100 comes with a prompt table. There are 100 prompts, around each of which a fic will be written. When I start to write, you can click on the prompt you'd like to read about and it'll take you directly to the fic written for that prompt. All fics will be posted here as well as to amidala_thrace.

( Fanfic100's Prompt Table )

I realize half the table is cut off, which I think has more to do with my journal layout than anything else. At some point I may change it, but for now, there it is. Rest assured you will be able to see the other half of the table as I start working on its prompts. XD

So I mentioned earlier that I was going to head to some used bookstores to see what BSC treasures I could dig up. I phoned around first, and as it turned out only one of the three stores on my list had any BSC books in stock. So I was sort of disappointed, but I went out anyway figuring I could pick up maybe one or two.

WELL.

I get to the store and ask the lady at the cash where their BSC books are. She nods and says, "Ohhh right, you're the person who called earlier," and leads me to the paperbacks section. I'm looking at this teeny tiny shelf of kids' books because I figure that's where they'll be, when the lady goes, "Oh, no, you want the shelves just down from that one."

Shelves?

I look down and - no lie - THERE ARE TWO ENTIRE SHELVES OF BSC/LITTLE SISTER BOOKS, RIGHT THERE!!!! I just went nuts. You probably could have heard the squee in Thailand. XD My boyfriend crouches down next to me and without a word I just start taking books off the shelf and passing them to him, only pausing long enough to look at the numbers and make sure I don't already have them. Before long he's got a pile up to his head, so he puts them down and I keep handing them over.

All in all I bought 28 books, most of them Little Sister. I'll put the list here for posterity.

( I didn't only hit the jackpot, I smashed it to smithereens! )

WOW. I am still literally grinning from ear to ear. Andrew says it's the happiest he's seen me in weeks. Suddenly Little Sister books, which previously were pretty lacking on my BSC bookshelf, are now the books I have the most of! Amazing. And I'm not even done with the bookstores in my area yet.

Off to go record these on the Master List! XDDDD

It's been a pretty busy week as far as BSC books go, and I think I'm making some good progress towards completing my collection. I actually had one person come into this journal, completely unrelated to anything else, and offer up a bunch of her books for me to purchase! I was totally bowled over by that, but pleased, obviously. When I complete the transaction with that seller I'll have nearly all of the early BSC books. So it's a definite plus.

Otherwise, bsc_trade has been bustling, and I've commented as often as I can with requests to purchase books. I'm waiting on PayPal (STILL) to deposit money that I asked for a week ago, which is quite irritating. I hate that they take 6-8 business days to transfer money to Canadian bank accounts when it's only 3-5 days in the U.S. >.> At least with the exchange rate nearly at par - above it, actually, in yesterday's case - I won't be losing a lot of extra money.

The only thing that kind of peeved me off is I missed getting a copy of Mary Anne and the Memory Garden on bsc_trade by about twenty minutes. ERGHH. It's one of the books that I'm most desperate to acquire (along with the Portrait Collections), because it was always one of my favourites. The post to trade it went up about 8:20, and since I was busy squeeing over High School Musical 2 I didn't check my f-list until 8:40, by which time someone had already requested it. *grumbles* Hopefully I'll have better luck next time.

( Purchases as of Sept. 29, 2007 )

I'm just about to head off to some used bookstores to see what I can scout out - wish me luck!!

Not to die, mind you. (Yay random Star Trek/Klingon references. XD) It's just a good day in general because of several things that have happened.

First off, I'm feeling a lot better from my cold, which turned out to be a sinus infection according to my doctor. I've been going to bed crazily early the past few nights, and I think all the extra rest is finally starting to kick in. Which is a good thing, because I don't tend to be a very good patient.

Secondly, the BSC book I won on eBay a couple of weeks ago came today! It's The Complete Guide to the Baby-sitters Club, which I needed because my old copy is missing its cover (my brother ripped it off when he was two) and a bunch of its pages. It's basically a wreck now, heh. The eBay copy is in absolutely perfect condition, it looks as though it just came off the book production line. No wrinkles in the spine or bends or tears in the cover, the map is folded in the back just the way it should be, and the pages aren't stained. They aren't even yellowed. I'm really excited about it, not to mention impressed, because the seller hadn't indicated what the condition of the book was on eBay. So I feared the worst. I was very happy when I opened the envelope it came in to find a book in basically mint condition. Amazing.

So I can cross The Complete Guide to the Baby-sitters Club off my list of books to get! I spent some time reading it this afternoon when I got home from work, and boy did it bring some memories back. When it was first published in 1996, my mom had taken me to this little children's bookstore near our house called Pugwash to reward me for getting straight A's or something, I can't remember exactly. (My parents rewarded me with books the way other parents rewarded their children with candy or toys.) Pugwash was kind of a hole in the wall, but really a great little bookstore. It had some real gems that I've never found anywhere since. It closed awhile ago, which is a shame. >.>

Anyway, we had gone to Pugwash after school. Mom took me there because it was typically where I went to get my Baby-sitters Club/Goosebumps fix. I was allowed to walk there by myself from school as long as I had a friend or two with me, but my mother came this time because it was a special occasion. I went to the BSC shelf and was mulling over whether to ask for Super Special #11 or Mary Anne's Book when one of the clerks tapped me on the shoulder. She was holding a copy of The Complete Guide to the Baby-sitters Club. The cover said, "Absolutely positively everything you've always wanted to know about the Baby-sitters Club!" I grabbed it immediately, started running towards my mom and then, remembering my manners, turned and thanked the clerk.

She smiled and said, "We just got that in. I thought you'd like it."

I hurried over to Mom and thrust the book in her face. "If you never ever buy me another book, you have to buy me this one!"

Luckily, she consented, and I went home very happy. I owned almost all of the BSC books at that time (curse you, Dad) and so had a lot of fun finding the pertinent books and looking the page numbers up. Then Scott ripped the cover off, for some silly reason - I think he might have been mad at me - and it didn't look nearly so pretty even though my mom tried to tape it back on. (She's a librarian, and can fix almost any book. Note I said almost.) It soon fell off again, and several of its inner pages followed.

And now I have it again, complete and intact and safe from little brother hands. (Just kidding, he wouldn't do something like that again. He's twelve and much more responsible.) Thank goodness for eBay!

The other good news is that High School Musical 2 is on again tonight! Family Channel, 7:30 p.m., for those of you in Canada wanting to catch it. Which you totally should. XD I can't wait!!! I've been listening to the soundtrack ever since I got home to pump myself up.

Oh, and before I forget - my summary of Claudia's Freind Friend will most likely be posted tomorrow. Next up: Kristy and the Snobs.

I swear, the first person to invent a cure for the common cold/sinus infection/whatever is making my head feel like it's about to blow up will be a freakin' millionaire. Colds SUCK. But listening to the High School Musical 2 soundtrack makes it all better. Troy/Gabriella singing together rocks my socks. XD

Just wanted to throw up a couple of quick notes, in point format, 'cause I don't really feel like a full post right now:

- Speaking of HSM2, it'll be airing on Family Channel again this Friday at 7:30 p.m. Woot! I'll be watching it for the second time, hopefully with a couple of friends. Will probably post something resembling commentary after the movie, along with my own personal HSM fandom story. And can you believe I haven't even seen the first movie yet? XD

- Some preliminary plot details have been confirmed for HSM3! (Locked post, so you'll have to be a member of disneychannel to see it.) No haunted HSM, like they'd originally said there might be. THANK GOODNESS. Plot reportedly "will be centred on the fast-growing kids' senior year." It will also be a theatrical release! Sweet!!

- I finished Claudia's Freind Friend on Sunday, so I'll be posting notes about that shortly. Probably within a few days.

edit: My friends and I, we have some interesting conversations. In my case, blame the cold medication. XD

( In which we opine on Karen Brewer )

So I realized while going through bsc_trade this morning that I need a sort of weekly purchases/trades post for BSC books, otherwise I'll lose track of what I've agreed to buy (and am just waiting on PayPal for money or whatever) and what I still need to keep an eye out for. The Master List is good for that, but it doesn't cover everything. So here's a post, mainly for me, to remind myself what I've bought or agreed to buy this week and what I haven't. I just like to be organized, heh. This will probably become a weekly thing.

( Purchases as of Sept. 22, 2007 )

So that's it for now.

Oh, and before I forget: Happy Birthday Mary Anne!!

Yep, double-posting ... deal with it. XD Part of the purpose of this journal is to post pics of the HSM stars as well as to gush about it, so here is the first of those posts.

Vanessa Hudgens attended a photo shoot at a Hollywood studio last Friday wearing gold flats and a silk scarf and carrying a Balenciaga handbag. Let me just say ... I want her entire outfit! *grins*

( Click me! )

Taken from hsmcast_daily.

Damnit, LJ, I HAVE made an entry in my journal!!!! See that, right down there, with a title? Yep, that's a journal entry just in case you were wondering! So please to be stopping screaming at me "ZOMG MAKE A JOURNAL ENTRYYYYY!!!!!!oneone111oneoneo1111eleventy!!!" each time I friend somebody or whatever. It's very off-putting.

/random rant

So anyway, this is that list I was talking about yesterday, of which BSC books I have and which I still need to get. I have a lot of the ebooks, but they aren't quite the same and I'd really like to own all of them in paper format. I'll be relying heavily on bsc_trade, obviously, and I got an eBay account specifically to bid on BSC books. I'm also planning to hit the used bookstores this weekend and see what I can dig up.

In the meantime, the list. BSC books that I own will be marked with a strikeout. Books that I need will be left alone. Books in possibly poor condition will be indicated.

( My BSC collection as of 29/09/07 )

I've got them all lined up in one particular shelf in my apartment - I should take a picture sometime, heh - and as you can see the ones I'm most lacking are the higher-number BSC books, a lot of the Little Sister books, and the Mysteries. Hopefully I can work on completing my collection, and the dual task of forgiving my father for making me sell half of it when I was fourteen. >.>

So, got rather tired of LJ screaming at me, "ZOMG U HAVEN'T POSTED A JURNAL ENTRY YET OH NOEZ THE WORLD WILL COME TO AN END IF'N U DON'T POST!!!!!!!111eleventythousand!!!111oneone!!!" Therefore, here is that first post. I'll make it short, partially because I want LJ off my back, partially because I don't want to bore you all with my life story - which most of you already know - and partially because I'm exhausted after a long day and just want to get some sleep, dammit.

This journal, as you'll no doubt have guessed by now, is meant as a place where I can relive the glory days of my childhood fandoms - as well as discover new fandoms for which I'm not exactly in the target age group. (High School Musical, Kim Possible and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody being the primary three.) Some or all of the following activities will take place here:

- I will chronicle my rereading of the Baby-sitters Club books, completely out of order, plot synopses and snarky comments included.

- I will chronicle my valiant attempts to collect all the books in the BSC series. At some point in the very near future I'll be posting a giant list, comprising what I have and what I still need to obtain. This is mainly for my reference, although of course you guys are welcome to take a peek at my progress too.

- I'll be joining all the communities pertinent to my fandoms with this account. Mainly so they don't clutter up my main journals.

- I will post news and info about High School Musical's cast, movie releases and other stuff.

- I will post my personal reactions to HSM movies.

- Random reminiscences about my childhood and adolescence are obviously par for the course.

Expect the list tomorrow and the first BSC book posting likely within the next few days. Not sure what I'll be doing yet, but shall let y'all know.