One of the fics I wrote because I wanted to see it written and because I love the deep brotherly love between Harry and Thomas...

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:

Harry Dresden for the holidays,
Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One American Gods fic,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.

"Moving Pictures"

by "Matrix Refugee"

Disclaimer: The Dresden Files do not belong to me, I'm just playing in the universe and shying snowballs at Jim Butcher's fanfic-phobic rules-lawyers.

Author's Note: One of these days I will write a Dresden Files fic that isn't set at the holidays, but this one begged to be written. Christmas is a time for families to be together and I thought I'd show a certain generally snarky wizard enjoying some family time with what family he has. I've also combined elements of the TV series with the book continuity; don't shoot me: I found both about the same time, so my heart likes to weave the two together. Mild spoilers for "Blood Rites" and "It's My Birthday, Too."

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( Christmas time tends to bring with it a small rush of nit-picky cases... )

I had planned to go out today and make my at-most-twice-a-month trip to the Burlington Barnes & Noble, but considering the extreme wind chills today and the fact that I was up till the wee hours last night typing one fanfiction, writing another and watching anime (not necessarily in that order or all at once, either), I decided to stay home today. So I've been curled up under the covers of my bed writing and reading. I won't say I'm mildly stuck on the 12 Days of Fanfic challenge, but I think I need a mini-break from it, though that means I may need to double up some days or let the challenge run over the time limit, which I hope people will understand.

Also, my mind seems to be cranking out stuff for anything but the 12 Days fics today, including a passage for a decidedly dark Yami no Matsuei fic that's presented itself to me. ( Lj cut for teal deers )

Aaaand my request to join An Archive of Our Own has been accepted: http://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee. So far all I have on there are the two YnM fics, but I'm working on importing more of the ff.n fics.

While watching Bleach: "Hey, this kid bringing food to Rukia sounds like Shinji Ikari. He's even a bit whiny." Turned out to be Spike Spencer, who's admitted that he's had people at conventions call out "Hey, Shinji!" to him, even though his regular speaking voice is a bit deeper and slangier-sounding than that of the pilot of Eva Unit-01.

While watching "Oh My Goddess!": "Why does this gal's dad sound like one of the Gushoshin?". I can't remember the guy's name right now, but sure enough, it was the same guy who voiced the gruffer-sounding of the two bird-like critters in Yami no Matsuei (which I refer to affectionately as "the good old boy" and "the squeaky toy" because of their respective voices).

A few episodes later in the same series: "Urd's old flame sounds like Tsuzuki with a touch of laryngitis; what's with that?" It became more obvious when he hollered something, to which I said, "Summoning shikigami??" Turned out it was another YnM voice actor, namely Dan Green (not the only time I've heard someone who sounded oddly like Tsuzuki in this series: the same VA has had several small parts in it. This was just the most obvious instance).

Requested by nightofcydonia, I've been itching to write a fic featuring Hal McGeever's take on David units...

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:

Frank Sweitz adopting a David unit,
One Chateau Christmas party,
One American Gods fic,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.

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"The First Gift of Christmas"

by "Matrix Refugee"


DISCLAIMER: I do not own “A.I., Artificial Intelligence”, its characters, settings, concepts or other indicia, which are the property of the late, great Stanley Kubrick, of DreamWorks SKG, Steven Spielberg, Warner Brothers, Amblin Entertainment, et al, based on characters and concepts created by Brian Aldiss. I also don't own Nat the fixer, who belongs to nightofcydonia

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In a lot of ways, this is based on O. Henry's classic "The Gift of the Magi", with a dash of Richard Paul Evans's "The Christmas Box" tossed in for good measure. It's a bit less fluffy than my previous "A.I." effort, but that kind of comes as no surprise given that the story is told from Hal McGeever's largely unsentimental viewpoint of his very sentimental partner Frank "The Heroic Reporter" Sweitz.

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( Christmas night and I'm sitting at the bar in Here Kitty Kitty, nursing a beer... )

I managed to get a rather nice if simple blouse to wear to the wedding (if we don't get snowed in...), but due to some difficulties catching a bus, I ended up with an hour to kill at the Starbucks inside the Target in Lowell. This became anything but a total loss, as I finished writing another fic for the 12 Days of Fanfic challenge (which I may post tomorrow). The only catch was, I had to deal with the squeeing teenaged girls at the next table:

Random teen #1: "Oh, we went to see New Moon again last night."

Me: :: Internal: Moans, not in a good way::

Random teen #2: "Oh, I've seen it three times!"

Me: :: Internal: There's better movies you could rewatch that many times....::

Random teen #3: "The book is better. Trust me."

Me: :: Internal: Hm. There's some amount of hope...::

This was even more cringe-inducing since I was writing a Dresden Files fic, featuring Harry's brother Thomas the energy vampire; as soon as one of the girls went on about wanting to meet a real vampire someday, I had to restrain myself from by turns cringing and chuckling to myself at the thought of said girls falling prey to the White Court. I also reminded myself that "Daybreakers" comes out next week and it looks like the perfect antidote to the fangless sparkle-pires. That shot in the trailer of the humans in what looks like some kind of Matrix-esque body pods always makes me think, "One way to deal with the Twhinelite fanggurls: feed 'em to vampires with *fangs*." I imagine there's going to be a lot of "Daybreakers" metafiction involving said fanggurls, as well as Photoshoops of said shot in the "Daybreakers" trailer with Kristin Stewart's face superimposed on one of the random humans in the body pods, if there isn't already. I admit I'm even fighting off a plot bunny involving a dhampire of sorts who's caught in between the humans and the vampires in the Daybreakers-verse, but that's going to have to wait till I actually *see the movie.

Also got caught in a surprise rain shower while leaving the library and running to catch a bus... and then it turned into a very pretty snow shower.

It's been a while since I wrote anything set in the DegSep universe, but it's still one that's dear to my heart, so when crowdog66 requested something from this alternate version of the Matrix 'verse, involving Neo and the Merovingian, I was at one in the same time fumbling for an idea and yet delighted for the chance to write about the One and the Red King of the Exiles. Then I was listening to Transsiberian Orchestra's song "Find Our Way Home", and this one came to mind...

On the Third Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:

One Chateau Christmas party,
One American Gods fic,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.

"Desires of Christmas Past and Present"

by "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note: Before I started playing the Matrix Online MMORPG, I was deeply involved in a fan-created Matrix RPG based on the "Degrees of Separation" series of Neo/Smith fics written by the incomparable Laure E. Smith. This series set off an intricate and quirky series of storylines bringing a wide range of epic fantastical elements and complex relationship geometries. This fic is set six months after the end of the Descent into Hell arc, in which the Merovingian was captured by demonic programs and hauled into the Matrix's equivalent of the Recycle Bin, from which he was rescued by a team of operatives, led by Neo and Smith, which included Blaise de Merovee, the Merovingian's almost grown half-human son and heir. Text in brackets [Like this] imply a mind to mind conversation.

Disclaimer: I don't own the "Matrix" series, its characters, concepts or other indicia, which belong to the Wachowski Brothers, Paul Chadwick, Warner Brothers, Village Roadshow Pictures, Joel Silver Productions, Burlyman Entertainment, Monolith, Sony Online Entertainment, etc.

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( Neo attended the Christmas party at the Chateau as a courtesy to the Merovingian... )

And also planning my week: Mark and Kristin's wedding is on Saturday (who knows if we'll make it, since there's supposed to be a blizzard), so I'm shopping for a wedding present for them as well as a new blouse for myself to wear to said wedding. Though I have a funny feeling we may get snowed out (snowed in?), but... at some point I'll need a nice blouse, so it won't be a total loss, plus I'll likely see them during the New Year, at which time I'll give them said wedding present.

Also have to bear in mind that I have work on New Year's Day, which means figuring out an early Mass to go to. :: Mutters:: I should never have told my supervisor that I took the Pledge when I was in my twenties.

One of the fics I'm poking at for the 12 Days of Fanfic is a Dresden Files fic; one of these days, I am going to write something involving the snarky wizard for hire which doesn't revolve around the holidays, though this year the fic also features his brother Thomas the energy vampire, as well as some ...interesting revelations about who else is on the family tree. :: Adjusts eyeglasses, smirks evilly::

I'm trying to get a fic or two ahead, since I'm mostly drafting the fics longhand during the day and typing them up later in the evening. One or two are actually already plotted out in my head, they just need to be typed up, but I'm trying to stagger the fandoms: I've got three "A.I." fics, two set in different permutations of the Matrix universe, two Neon Genesis Evangelion fics (specifically set in my Neon Enoch Evangelion 'verse), two (possibly three) Yami no Matsuei fics, and one each of the Dresden Files and Trinity Blood. Last thing I want to do is have two fics from two fandoms on consecutive days (not sure why, other than spreading out the fun). Though I may post the possible third YnM fic on the same day as another that I am definitely posting, since one fic is slashy while the possible fic is a het fic for those who don't exactly do slash (and that was me a few years ago, though I was open towards slash by writers I trusted; one of these days I'll post a Teal Deer about how I came to be more accepting of slash pairings).

I've also been imagining a strange frame-story for this series, featuring cross-fandom auditions for the finale... Not sure if I'll add that, though it's very tempting.

On the Second Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:

One American Gods fic,
and An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.

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"After Christmas Sale"

by "Matrix Refugee

Disclaimer: I don't own American Gods, which belongs to the incomparable Neil Gaiman, and to HarperTorch Fiction. I don't own the gods, either: they own themselves.

Author's Note: I had to bend the mythos (heh...) just a bit: this happens somewhere around the beginning of "Part Two: My Ainsel" in the book, but it plays fast and loose with Wednesday and Shadow's trip toward Wisconsin. In keeping with nightofcydonia's prompt for " American Gods, 'the spirit of Christmas, literally'", I'd tried writing a story involving a put-upon department store Santa, but then the spirit of Christmas took on a completely different form and refused to allow the story to go the way I wanted, so I realized I had to do what Neil himself said he had to do when he was writing Delirium in the Sandman Comics, and that was to sit back and listen to her rant a bit...

( En route to Wisconsin, Wednesday had them take a detour... )

I managed to nab a pair of the new Christmas/holiday eggs (only took me about a half hour of trial and error). I know I said I was taking a break from the cave, but I couldn't resist.

Clicks to feed them, please?

//

http://matrixrefugee.insanejournal.com/

So in the event that something goes Hideously Wrong with LiveJournal (In the order of the infamous Strikethrough incident) and also to keep up with one or two comms, I've created an InsaneJournal. If any of you have an IJ, don't hesitate to friend me over there: the IJ looks lonely. Not sure how often I will be posting in it, and I plan to use it as a place to post my NC-17 rated fics; I've been tempted to transfer the few adult level fics I have on here to the IJ, but this would result in broken links on LiveJournal, so from this point onward, I will be posting new fics of this nature on the IJ. This includes what I'm calling "the Angelspit remix of chapter three of 'Red Moon/Akatsuki'," which I've started to poke at, but which probably won't go live until after the New Year. At this point, it's shaping up to feature: more explicit detail in that scene in the woods, Bella's dream getting naughtier, and more blood when she falls into the ravine. I'm having to restrain myself from going into Hideaki Anno mode on this one ("Oh yeah? You want to see Bella bleed? You got it!"). I swear he pulled out all the stops in End of Evangelion because he got sick of the otakus whining about how NGE would have been better if he'd featured :: Insert fanboy wish::.

Requested by ladyneferankh who wanted "one for A.I. Artificial Intelligence, something involving Christmas cheer, Teddy, David and Joe."

On the First Day of Christmas, the Matrix Refugee fanficced for ye:

An A.I. fic with David decorating his first Christmas tree.

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"David's First Christmas"

by "Matrix Refugee"

DISCLAIMER: I do not own “A.I., Artificial Intelligence”, its characters, settings, concepts or other indicia, which are the property of the late, great Stanley Kubrick, of DreamWorks SKG, Steven Spielberg, Warner Brothers, Amblin Entertainment, et al, based on characters and concepts created by Brian Aldiss

Author's Note: Very much an AU. David has clearly been rescued from his watery grave in Coney Island and has been returned to his family. Cute Christmas fluff and WAFF aplenty (though not without it's oddness: I seem to write WAFF tempered with darker elements). Also set features the trio who appear in more than a few of my Cecie Martin fics.

( A week before December 25th... )

Just the three of us: Mass this noon at St. Mary's in Newton, Christmas dinner, opening presents; we have a tradition in our family where, in the manner of the 12 Days of Christmas, we open one package a day until Epiphany or "Little Christmas" on January 6th. On the first day of Christmas, I've so far received:

-- A tee shirt with a collage of pictures of several Popes, past and present (from my mom) and

-- . . . A Hello Kitty ladle to go with the Hello Kitty spatula which my dad gave to my mom. I am not making this up!

And within a few minutes, I should be posting the first of the much-anticipated and promised 12 Days of Fanfic...

Partly an addendum to my last post... Just been watching the televised version of Midnight Mass at the Vatican. At least for the recessional, they stepped up security: four men in suits, one of them the commander of the Swiss Guard, surrounded His Holiness, keeping eagle eyes on the crowd. Now, if they'd just done this to begin with...

This has inspired two things in me: the first and more serious (and more obvious) is to pray for the healing of that disturbed (and disturbing) woman. The second ties into one of the 12 Days of Fanfic ideas I'm tossing around: I'd decided to write a plotless sketch set in the Trinity Blood universe, centering around midnight Mass at the Vatican, with some mild Esther/Abel sweetness (mostly just friends, though I have a feeling the Church in the TB-verse may have relaxed the rule of celibacy in the clergy and the religious since the human population was partly wiped out). Now I'm holding a tracer bullet on a plot-bunny inspired by this evening's real-world incident; my concern though, would this fic be a little too close for comfort for some people, and would it come off like one of those wonkily-written "X disaster happens in the Y universe" fanfics that pop up every time there's some catastrophe, with X being the disaster/tragedy of the moment and Y representing the fanficer's pet fandom. Granted, my first publicly posted fanfic *ever* was a Matrix fic that I wrote during the aftermath of 9/11, when I was still trying to get my head around what was going on (the fic isn't my best effort, but one has to start somewhere...), I still hold some mental reservations about this kind of story: Does it take advantage or capitalize on a tragedy or a catastrophe? Or am I just overthinking things (as usual)?

Sidetrack: I've also confirmed my hunch that the creator of Trinity Blood, the late Sunao Yoshida, attended a Catholic high school; I'd suspected he was either raised Catholic or gone to a Catholic school, given how much he gets right about Catholicism (alongside how much he got sideways, not necessarily wrong. "Wrong" implies ignorance or coloring the facts or just plain ignoring the facts. For the last, see also "Dan Browned" on TVTropes.org). I've come to so much of an appreciation of the TB-verse that while re-watching the anime, I said under my breath, "If you're going to write about fictitious Vatican assassins -- and I swear, if you believed Hollywood and novelists of that bend, then the Vatican has more covert ops agents than the CIA, the KGB and MI6 combined -- this is the way to do it."

Also, there was a passage in His Holiness's sermon which made the Matrix fan side of me perk up its ears (yes, it still exists, even if the Matrix series doesn't quite hold the center of my fannish fixations right now). He spoke of "sleepers awakening from a dream world" and of course that made me think people awakening from the Matrix. I'm waiting for the translated text of the sermon to turn up on the Vatican's official website so I can share the exact words; I tried to find it elsewhere and I hit a couple of pages that made my anti-virus software go into defense mode. :: Growls::

And yes, I am up this late because I am waiting for someone rattling around the living room to Go To Bed so I can take my turn at being the Christmas Angel...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1238201/Pope-Benedict-XVI-knocked-floor-mentally-unstable-woman-jumped-barrier-Midnight-Mass.html

Note to the Vatican: Please step up security during Midnight Mass; next time, this might not end as well as it did. Two years in a row is not very good odds. I know it disrupts the flow of the procession just a bit to have a bunch of bodyguards immediately around His Holiness, but better safe than sorry. Also find out who this woman's caretaker is (if she has one...) and lean on them a little in a good way: They need to get some major treatment for her since she's done this twice to the same religious leader. If she doesn't have someone looking after her, see that she gets someone to take care of her; this isn't fair to her or to His Holiness or to that French cardinal who broke his leg in the scuffle.

Nor is fair to me, since right now I want to bite a piece out of her energy field to get her in line (which won't happen since I don't have a clear image of her face).

The Christmas craziness at work is behind me, and I've just finished putting up our beloved clunky-looking decorations (finally found the boxes they've been tucked away in all year...). I'm following Santa via the NORAD Santa site -- he's currently over the Sandwich Islands, in the south Atlantic. I just have to finish putting the "weird-looking things" on the Christmas tree, ie. the Keepsake ornaments and other little widgets and gadgets, and put up the Nativity scene on the mantel.

A Must Read: "The Vampire's Christmas" by the incomparable Michelle Belanger: http://sethanikeem.livejournal.com/267680.html It's by turns touching and spooky and blackly funny.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Peace on earth, good will toward men and women and children... and vampires, and AIs, and mythic entities, and shinigami...

Just watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (and in my world, the only one that exists is the Chuck Jones cartoon version), and I have to admit, it's one of my favorites, due in no small part to my love for Dr. Seuss and his oddball wit and also the fact that none of the stations in my area didn't air it for a good ten years: not sure why. Being deprived of it has made me jump at the chance to watch it when we find it on. I'm also a sucker for "A Christmas Carol" (the version with George C. Scott as Scrooge, the Muppets' version and the musical version with Albert Finney are my personal favorites). And of course, Christmas Eve would not be Christmas Eve without watching "It's a Wonderful Life" and putting the last touches on the Christmas tree. I have to admit to relating to George Bailey a whole lot: I might have big dreams, but circumstances seem to be calling me to serve in a smaller capacity than I would normally choose. (That and I have a bit of a crush on Jimmy Stewart).

And... "Nightmare Before Christmas". It's Tim Burton, it's stop-motion, it has black humor with a lot of goth overtones. You can watch it at Hallowe'en or Christmas. ...I need to get the DVD, stat.

Hard to say if I have any specials that I really dislike, except maybe this one a year or two ago that I can't remember the dumb title of; it involved some wonky-looking claymation anthro-reindeer (or CGI that looked like claymation) making lame attempts at (rather low) slapstick humor. One of the voice actors was Britney Spears... and her character was a female reindeer with rather obvious hoo-hoos. Not that hoo-hoos are bad things (far from it...), they just looked weird on a reindeer, even an anthro-reindeer. Might have just been the model or the way it was rendered, but it seemed like a bad attempt at fanservice. I ended up changing the channel.

I also have to be in the right frame of mind to watch "Miracle on 34th Street"; this probably stems from the fact that as a kid, I was scared of Santa Claus. I didn't freak out or anything like that, I just tended to freeze up whenever the Guy in the Red Suit was around. There's even this photo of me at age six sitting on the lap of a friend of a friend in his Santa get-up, and I look like a rabbit staring into the headlights of an on-coming 18-wheeler on a dark, icy highway. To this day, I am still agnostic about Santa (the Christmas Angel always brought presents to our house, and still does, in a manner of speaking).

...So far I haven't been too frazzled by the chaos that is Christmas week (aside from the hormone-induced hiccup on Monday); I chalk this up to two things: plotting out my 12 Days of Fanfic stories while I'm working and keeping a good flow of chi going through my being. I remembered to practice my T'ai Ch'i form and that's helped immensely. Consequently, I had people asking me if I was tired and why I wasn't tired. I joked about it: "I'm on my second wind/I'm hyper-focused for a change today." This garnered some grumbling, but it was too busy to really notice.

So far I have one fic drafted and ready to be typed, I'm most of the way through another fic (one of three for this fandom and am ditto for another. We'll see how my schedule next week goes since we have New Year's Day, plus my best friend's wedding coming up and the day after that, I have to help with inventory at work; I may wind up running over the 12 days, but my family pretty much celebrates Christmas by the pre-Vatican II calender, ie. we leave the decorations up till Candlemas/the Feast of the Purification of Our Lady, on February 2nd. So if the fics are a bit slow in coming, rest assured, they will pop up on here sometime before then, hopefully before mid-January.

Had a much-needed day off (the calm before the storm that starts tomorrow), so I took care of a few errands, specifically some bank stuff and getting vitamins at Wal-Mart.

On my way back, I had lunch at the Dunkin Donuts here in town. And as I walked in, this teenaged couple at a table in the back were arguing noisily. I wasn't sure, but I heard a sound like someone's face getting slapped. One of the clerks behind the counter went for the phone, and within the time it took for my order to arrive, a police car and a plain wrapper (unmarked vehicle with a dome light in the back window) pull up, followed by a third police car, all with their lights going like mad (it's a small, quiet town: anything that happens usually winds up looking like the Crime of the Century for the sheer amount of police cars that show up). First a plain clothes cop steps in and assesses the situation, asking a few questions of two girls who'd seen everything that went on. Then the two uniformed cops come in, one a younger guy with a crew cut, the other an older fellow with a white mustache.

( EDIT: Cut to make a long story F-list safe )

I woke up this morning to find over a foot of snow had fallen: nice powdery stuff, too, the kind that's really easy to shovel. I call it "broom snow", since you can practically use a broom to sweep it away.

Wrapped up the giving tree gifts and brought them to St. Michael's: some lucky lady is going to get a gift card towards her grocery shopping and the loveliest blue plush bathrobe and white plush slippers imaginable.

The three of us had dinner at the local Cracker Barrel: and who should we spy at the table next to ours, but a stocky gent with a white beard, clad in a red sweater. Hm...

Off to bed with me: I'm exhausted and the week of crazy at work begins tomorrow...

Just got our big tree into the living room! Unfortunately, this meant cleaning the living room, which was in dire need of a dusting, and though I was tackling bathrooms while my mother was dusting, I still got a lungful of dust which caused me to be pretty miserable for some time. Gaah... T'will be worth it, though!

And we're waiting with bated breath for the big winter storm that's on the way: the forecasters are predicting thunder-snow squalls, which are a rare but delightful sight: the crystalline beaut of snow and the power of thunder!

Change in plans in the 12 Days of Fanfic: I added a Trinity Blood fic to the list since I had a lovely idea pop into my head while I was taking a bath. I'm planning to start rewatching the series soon, and I'm also twiddling with a review of it from a Catholic perspective. In a few words: there's things that are off-kilter about how the Church is portrayed, but there's nothing to object about. If anything, it makes the Church look really cool and awesome and there's an element of what's been called "muscular Christianity", ie. strength in faith, in character and in defending the faith and the innocent, sometimes with words and sometimes with your fists or your guns... or your awesome Crusnik abilities. Some people might get tetchy about Father Tres Iques, but I think this is a case of the Church bestowing "honorary Holy Orders" on someone (or something with a certain amount of non-biological intelligence). This used to be done a long time ago, in that someone would receive Holy Orders, usually because they'd served the Church in some unusual capacity, but they were dispensed from the regular duties of the priesthood, eg. saying one Mass every day; the one instance that comes to mind was St. Jerome, who translated the entire Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into Latin: he was given Holy Orders but because his health wasn't that great, he was dispensed from the regular duties of the priesthood so that he could continue his work.

The only other thing that raises my eyebrows is the female bishop and the female Cardinal: not likely to happen, though no doubt, there were nuns who stepped in to help serve the Church heroically in the wake of the apocalyptic events before the start of the series. This actually put me in mind of the crypto-Catholics who kept the Faith alive in Japan after the persecutions during the Tokugawa period, when dozens of priests were arrested or driven out of Japan: in the two hundred years between then and the reopening of Japan to the West in the 1800s, there were native priests and nuns who hid in the more remote areas and helped keep a small pilot light of Catholicism lit by teaching the Faith to those who would accept it and encouraging them to pass it on to their children. Of course, in time, the only sacrament that could be offered was baptism, but there was a village where one family kept a set of vestments, Mass books and sacred vessels hidden in their house and passing them on from one generation to the next, in the hope that some day the priests would be allowed to return to Japan. They also helped keep a vaguely defined small parish of sorts together, offering a rudimentary service on Sunday and praying the Rosary. They even repurposed statues of Kwan Yin as images of Our Lady and in some cases carved small crucifixes on the backs of Buddha statues (this actually pops up in one anime series, and from an odd source: there's a scene in Yami no Matsuei where the *main villain* of the series talks about this; I'm still puzzling over that, though I have some goo theories on it...).

Well, that wound up as more than a few words. :: laughs::