Up To No Good

• Holy crap, these dogs are gassing me out! Air freshener, stat!

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter any damn time it pleases. *scowl*

As I ended yesterday, I was preparing for my Epic Campaign to encourage more Snape/Lupin.

By Epic Campaign, I really mean that I decided to comment on every Snape/Lupin I came across, and that anytime I saw anyone offering drabbles or art, I would ask for Snape/Lupin. Now, you have to understand, the RPG was my first attempt at interacting with fandom. I don't think I had even commented on many journals then. So, when I say I started commenting and asking for drabbles/art, this was a big deal for me.

I made myself one ground rule: Don't say anything to anyone that I wouldn't want to hear myself as a creator. That meant not asking when the next chapter of a Work in Progress might be out or asking for a sequel, or commenting to someone else without actually commenting on the fic or art itself. Two years of lurking will at least teach you what not to do. There were times when I worried that some regular Snape/Lupin writers (*cough* McKay, Arion *cough*), were going to think I was a stalker, but I toughed it out in the name of more Snape/Lupin. ^_^

I'd like to think that my enthusiastic squee and encouragement helped inspire more Snape/Lupin in some small way, but I suspect Arion and McKay's April Showers challenge had more to do with it. Actually, what happened during that same month is that I had been thinking of asking to help out at lupin_snape for quite a while, too shy and under-confident to act. But the renewed interest in the community and the mods' busy real lives made several other Snape/Lupin fans muse "aloud" in their journals about asking to mod at the community.

And yes, my ego has come far enough along now to admit that I thought I was the best person for the job at the time and that I'd better get on the stick before the others went from musing to asking. I was wrapping up the RPG, and I'd gained some experience managing a group of people with varying desires and needs from the game. I'd made plenty of mistakes, which helped to an extent, although I feel I've made plenty of mistakes at lupin_snape, too. I guess I learned that I could make mistakes and only hold on to them quietly, rather than actively beating myself up over them. ~_^

But I had ideas, too, and, again, those two years of lurking showed me which communities thrived and which died out after the initial excitement waned. For just about 5 years, the ship has been running strong, mainly because there are mods obviously on-duty there. People want to know that other people are paying attention. What kind of a "community" runs steadily without a sense of togetherness?

My modding philosophy has been simple: It's Our community, not my community. A community is nothing without its members, and I've tried to run lupin_snape as openly and all-inclusive as possible while maintaining that final "say" only because sometimes someone has to make the decision. I can't think of any time I've actually put my foot down, other than to protect the community from spammers, and to this day, I've never banned anyone except known "problem" accounts from back in the Russian Invasion LJ days. Anyone who tells you that they're not welcome at lupin_snape is imposing her/his own exile.

I remember one of the people who wanted to mod (long gone from fandom now), talking about how she wanted to take over and then she could demand Marauders-era fic because that was her favourite era, which scared me to the bone. Snarry, even back then, had more than one "basic" community, and I knew the Snape/Lupin ship wasn't big enough to survive with a lot of splinter communities, which is what would have happened if LS (Lupin_Snape from now on) had become Marauders-focused. Eventually, someone unhappy with that focus would have gone and started Snape_Lupin_Adults or something, and the fans would have been scattered. The ship might have never grown.

Hum. I've meandered away from the question. It's because I love LS and its members so very much; I could go on about it all day. So, after being frightened into action, I consulted with a few friends for some final hand-holding and wrote the mods, offering to be the active mod. I was completely surprised when both women responded within the week with easy Yes'es, and my account was given mod status. Surprised, only because I thought it would be harder to convince anyone to take me on. ~_^

My first month was kind of rocky because I'd barely introduced myself when there was a major death in the family. But you know, in case anyone has the wrong impression, the original LS mod, makishef, has always been interested in the community and pairing, she just didn't have time to maintain a hands-on approach to the community. That month, she stepped right up and made sure the monthly challenge was issued and on-track while I was away. The other mod that was on board when I came on has since moved on, but she was always friendly and supportive as well. They're great gals, and I hope no one thinks anything but the best of them. We wouldn't have LS without them.

I was back by June with a new monthly challenge and there's been something new every month or two since then. I think people cross-posting their challenge-inspired works to their journals and other communities helped let people know that LS was an active, interesting place to be, as well as a treasure-trove of great Snape/Lupin content if they were interested in finding more. I think we hit 750 members by the end of the year and 1000 members a little over a year after the April Showers challenge. Somewhere along the line, "Snupin" became the preferred moniker for the pairing, and I stopped trying not to use it about a year after that. ~_^ I still use Snape/Lupin, though, when I go outside the community, if only because now that fandom is waning, new people coming in don't always get the squished nickname phenomenon.

So, that's it. That's how I came to be mod at LS. And while I answered why I shipped Snape and Lupin together before, in my normal fandoming I always point people here when they ask me why I ship Snupin. It's short and to the point, and I couldn't have said it better myself.

love, lore

geri_chan asked how I got into Snupin and ended up as a mod for lupin_snape.

I think I've sort of told this story in bits and pieces in different places over the years, but to have it all in one place....

Once upon a time, I was a fandom lurker. I'd drifted into HP from XF and after a couple years of lurking, some LJ friends were pimping a new RPG on their journals...over and over again. I started to wonder if I shouldn't give an RPG a try. I wanted to write again and I'd been reading an RPG avidly, so why not try it myself? From my reading experience at my fave RPG and checking out a few others, I was sure putting in an application so late in the casting period would net me a super-minor, low-maintenance character like Hannah Abbott or Stephen Cornfoot (remember him?); a student character not close to the main action. I said I'd take anyone. I received back: Snape.

Severus Snape? Are you kidding me? I don't care about the adult characters?! Arrgh!

But I said I'd take anyone, so I went on a research bender for Severus Snape. O....k. You know, when you bother to look beyond the surface, there's something up with Snape. He's not just the year-long red-herring; he's Albus' right-hand, he's powerful, he sees through Harry and when Voldemort comes back, Albus sent him off to re-join the Death Eaters (this RPG started in the weeks before OotP was released). I came to respect Severus Snape while looking at the facts. I fell in love with him when I started reading the fan fic.

RPGs are all about the shipping, did you know that? (*snicker*) I started to wonder with whom I could possibly ship Snape (even in a longing, unrequited way in the RPG). I ruled out the kids right away (I didn't even know what "cross-gen" was back then, but I don't like unequal relationships), and I realised there were no developed women in HP that were Severus' age either. I'd just had the slash light turned on by Aragorn/Boromir -- surely I could slash Snape! There were at least a few candidates around his age. With those limitations in mind, I hit the Snape FQF archive.

I read several pairings for Snape, but the character that I kept going back to was Remus. I read some great stories in many pairings, don't get me wrong. But much of the Sirius fic was hatesex or I didn't recognize Snape or Sirius in them, and Harry fics bothered me as much as I thought they would. Albus usually involved power games, the Weasleys weren't really in play back then, Kingsley wasn't on the horizon, James was dead, Lucius was a married bad guy and I wanted my Snape to secretly be good, etc.

Severus had real history with Remus. They were the same age, had held the same job, had gone to school together, had darkness tinging their souls. Snape had followed Remus' gang around school, Remus had almost killed him and Snape still made him Wolfsbane. Severus and Harry have history, but it's convoluted and uneven at best. Same with Albus. And Sirius, not so much. In fact, I've always found it hard to believe that Snape/Lupin wasn't a popular ship right off the bat. Maybe it seemed too easy to some people, I don't know.

ANYWAY, the more I explored Snape/Lupin, the more in love with the idea I fell, until Snape/Lupin was all I wanted to read. The problem I had was that there wasn't a whole lot of Snupin out there. After I went through the FQF, I found lupin_snape, which, at the time, did not have much activity, and I scoured the journals and archives from there. Once I'd exhausted all the resources I could think of, I knew there was only one thing to do:

Go on an Epic Campaign to encourage more Snape/Lupin.

To Be Continued in the next post. I started this late for a reason....

love, lore

Urf. I am in writing lockdown until smutty_claus is done, because *draws hearts around story* but also *stabs it with a fork* a;slkjdfs.

But! Had to reappear for a moment to point out that the first-ever Harry/Scorpius Last Drabble Writer Standing competition at harryscorp100 just started. Yes, I have a soft spot for Harry/Scorpius, although no, I'm not in this competition. Just an interested observer. I only recently figured out a.) what LDWS things are, and b.) how they work, so now I want everyone to do them. :)

So, there are 15 writers in it, and each week they get a prompt, and then they write a drabble (defined here as under 500 words or so, I think or, in any case, not 100 on the dot), send it in, and they are all posted anonymously mid-week. Then readers vote for their favourite, reveals happen on Sunday, and a new weekly round begins, with one less person. Fifteen weeks later, we have a winner. Fun, yes?

Maybe I'm just addicted to reality TV shows wherein voting for favourites occurs? Hm.

Anyway, I point out this week's Week One drabbles because they are all super good. The first prompt was 'Age Disparity,' so all entries have something to do with the age difference. Scorpius is underage in some but not in others, so read the warnings and go with whatever floats your boat. I had a great time over coffee the other day reading through them and trying to decide on a favourite. No, I'm not always in favour of competitive stuff in fandom, and yeah, it sucks that someone has to be eliminated every week, but hopefully all the participants are okay with that and know not to take it personally. Anyway, if it appeals to you, go have a read through over there and vote!

In other news, I just read through a super awesome story for snupin_santa this morning that made me fall in love with Snupin all over again. Swoon!

*runs back to smutty_claus* Hope all your holiday fest stuff is in and you lot are having a relaxing weekend!

. . . but until then, more random posts.

severus_sighs posted their interview with jadzialove, who just happens to be my beta. *squishes her*

I must point you especially to her answer to number #5, "What is it about Severus you find sexy?" because OMG it's a great answer (in under 100 words).

osmalic asked how I celebrate Halloween.

As a kid, I generally looked forward to trick-or-treating. I did that through age 14, and then I was officially too old for it. If only I'd have known then that most people ignore the age limit!

As an adult, I've tended to hold my own birthday/Halloween party. This is the first year we've had to cancel because of illness. Sometimes, when my birthday falls in the middle of the week, a party isn't as feasible. If the weather is good, we like to set up the candy in the front yard and make the kids walk through the leaves we refuse to rake. On occasion, we've also blared scary music.

I'm not really a great decorator or costumer. I kind of enjoy clever, low-labor costumes, but I had so many "that's lame" reactions that I stopped even doing those. In my house, it's pretty much Halloween year-round in terms of decoration, and my aunt always gives me something neat that's Halloween-themed, so while I have a huge pile of Halloween stuff in basement, I hardly ever get it all out. But I could deck this place out like the Adams Family mansion if I wanted to. *grin*

I love haunted houses, although I don't get out to them every year, but they're always on my mind each year. And I celebrate Friday the 13ths as kind of adjunct holidays to Halloween. When I'm particularly vexed, I take a hex for myself on Halloween.

Probably my best birthday was last year, turning over a decade and having all my friends and family around. It was a nice night and most of my friends got good and silly in front of a fire, which was different for us, but verrrrry entertaining. Worst that I care to document was definitely this year. ~_^

love, lore

After months and months of not touching the keyboard, thanks to mini_nanowrimo, I'm back to writing daily. Each day in November (so far), I've managed to write at least 100 words. Go me!

But that's not the object of this post.

I've been thinking about what to do when Mini Nano is over. How to kick my butt and stay with the writing daily? And I've come up with an idea:

Is there anyone who'd like to open up a writer's group, so to speak (via email or whatever), where we can report our word counts, keep each other on track, and squee about our writing? I was thinking maybe we could give out prompts if someone fails their target or some such. What do you think, anybody for it? *puppy eyes*

Here are a few thoughts about Project Runway tonight:

Whoever made up Heidi in that pink must be shot. Also, she looked like she had eye work done. But I hope not.

The wrong person won.

There was a costume-heavy line. Rosy was right when she said in chat that the hats made the models look like penises.

Tim Gunn spazzing out was adorable.

I wasn't so pissed off that I won't tune in come January, but it's a close thing.

*****
Good friend had a birthday today. We managed a small gift and short visit, and I'm glad because this friend isn't celebrated enough.

That's all I have for now. Maybe I better keep this up in December, just to get to all the topics I'm not hitting on yet.

love, lore

P.S. See the Bones icon? It needs help, but I'm not sure what....

Title: Reversal of Fortune
Author: unbroken_halo
Pairing: Severus/Bill, others
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1,251
Summary: Severus and Bill make an agreement.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and company belong to JKR Rowling. This piece of fiction was written for entertainment purposes only and makes no monetary gain for the author.
Highlight for Warnings: * BDSM, Doms playing together, blowjob, wall!sex*
AN: For irana! Ask and ye shall receive, love. *smoochies* I hope you had a fantastic birthday! Much thanks to eeyore9990 for the beta and the slash chat darlings for their help. Directly follows Wheel Of Fortune, so if you haven't read that you might be a little lost.

( Happy Birthday, darling! )

Instructions:

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."

• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity

• Update your journal with the answers to the questions

• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.


( Read more... )

Some of my favorite authors/artists were interviewed and now severus_sighs is posting them. joanwilder and accioslash are two of the people they've interviewed so far. I love seeing how different people approach their craft and fandom in general.

Here's the interview tag although of course there is lots of lovely fic as well.

Still not feeling the love for writing any tonight, so I thought I would go ahead and repost the fics I wrote for fall_fantasia. This is the first.

Title: 'Meta' Carpus
Author:unbroken_halo
Pairing: Harry/Charlie, others
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1,132
Summary: There's just something about a man's hands.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Company belong to JK Rowling. This fiction was written for entertainment only and makes no monetary gain for the author.
Highlight for Warnings: *bi-curiosity, innuendo, men having hawt sex! *
AN: For the participants and watchers of fall_fantasia. Last year, alisanne, eeyore9990 and I all collaborated on a fic for the fest. It fit in with the posting schedule and was well received so I decided to do it again this year; only I didn't bother to inform them I was doing so.

(  'Meta' Carpus )

SQUEE! Snarry art for me!

atypicalsnowman and I both commissioned swtalmnd to make us a bit of art. You can see both pieces here. Go and leave a comment if you enjoy them! ♥

I think they are both DIVINE! :D

Put my name down on the waiting list for AO3. Why the fuck not? I can decide later whether I actually want to use it or not. I'm number 319 on the list.

Got over 1700 words written today. I might try to do some more tonight after the kids go to bed. We're reading COS again, we're in the middle of the Dueling Club chapter. ;)

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I love a good, long fanfic (with lots of smex, but that's another post...). The holiday exchange season is creeping up on us, as it is the time of year when people start to evaluate their lives and think that it would be a good idea to pull all their fanfic off the internet (it's not!!).

If you are like me, and you want ALL the fan fic, saving stories off the internet to your hard drive is essential to your sanity.

I ran into a poster on LJ who didn't realise that if you save simple text files of journal and some web pages, you will get a text format that includes characters to show italics and bold (usually slashes: /italicized or bold text here/), essentially giving you the story in a format that can be easily transferred to most reading devices without losing the author's intended passages of emphasis. If you didn't know you could do this either, read on!

lore's nerdy file-saving tips
In your web browser, make the following choices:

File > Save Page As > Save As File Type

Choose .txt and then give the file a name. Hit Save.

If the person has NOT used Smart Quotes, you should get a story in all its texty glory, slashes for italics and all. Most saved journal pages are messy, with lots of gunk at the top and bottom in code, including comments. I used to clean up the files as I saved, and I recently stopped doing that. When I open the file again for reading, I'll clean it up then. Also, if I'm looking for sequels or more from the writer, there's plenty of hidden clues in the gunk at the top or bottom if I need it.

When I put a file on my Sony reader, I clean up the gunk. The lines break unevenly toward the end of paragraphs on the reader screen, but I don't find that the quirk makes the file unreadable. Also, I've never fiddled with a text file to try and fix that problem because it doesn't bother me, but you might be able to fix it. Maybe saving the text file with line wrap off? I'll have to try that sometime.

On Efiction web archives, you know there's a little printer icon at the top of the Table of Contents (also on the first chapter), and if you click it in the TOC, you get the entire story on one page, which you can then save as a text file. Again, no smart quotes means you'll get the /--/ for italics. Efiction is a VERY kind way to archive because people can choose to read by chapter or as a big chunk, and saving a multi-chaptered fic is one click of the printer icon (hint to those thinking of putting up their archive of their work!).

I'm sure other archive programs have functions like this, but not most of the online self-archives like FFN, Skyehawk, etc. Maddening. I've been known to scour the net for an hour hoping to find a fic in one file somewhere, rather than go through the hassle of putting together a 30-chapter, multi-part epic. On the wise advice of a friend, I've recently just started saving the chapters individually into a folder, but when you get past 10 chapters in a fic, even saving by chapter gets tedious.

I'm a fan of looooong fics, so I've obsessed about this quite a bit. And I like saving things off to my hard drive when I think the fic is special, because we never know when something or someone is going to up and disappear from the internet. Lately, I've been saving almost defensively, as the HP fandom winds down and drifts away. Archives and saving fics in a readable format are more important to me than ever.

Finally, there are some ways to possibly get around smartquotes, but I've only ever done it through experimentation, with no real consistency. You know you have a file with smartquotes, btw, when the quote marks and apostrophes all turn into question marks. Bleh!

love, lore

LONDON IN EARLY JANUARY, YAY! HAVE FLIGHTS AND PEOPLE TO MEET. SO ECSTATIC! *dances*

Okay, on a slightly saner note: apparently you can forget how to write porn. It's painful to admit, but it is so - I've become rusty with the writing. On that note I ask that you rec me your favourite quick-and-dirty PWPs (HP, SPN, CW RPS, Merlin)! Please? *puppy-eyes*

Also, I can haz more triumph today: for my BA I have to attend this stupid course Pronunciation and Intonation - British English. Now the first time I was there the prof asked me whether I'd spent a year in England, which in itself is very much "!!". She was quite surprised when I told her I've spent four weeks in London, yo. Then she told me I might get an exemption from the course, I'd just have to send in a few mp3-files and then she'd judge. I got my course mark today: 1.7, which is an A-, which is pretty fucking fantastic - I don't have to attend the course any longer. HAH, take that! :P

So my writing list is dwindling, and yet, I still have no time for drabbles. I miss my drabbles but RL is not giving me a chance to breathe much less write and more often than not when I do write it is hurried. I hate that. Not only does it make me feel as if I am rushing someone's gift but it also makes me careless, and I hate that even more. Today, though, today is actually my day to myself and I just don't feel the urge to write.

( More )

Must re-start my Kinky Xmas ASAP so naturally I'm going laundry.

*deep breath*
*opens Word*
Hmm, maybe I should refill my coffee cup before I start.
*gets coffee*
*looks at blank document*
I think the clothes are done. I'll go put them in the dryer. Should I start another load? Yes, lots to do.
*gathers dirty socks*
Maybe I'll have a little snack with my coffee before I get started writing.
*nibbles very slowly*
*looks at computer screen*
*winces*
Oh, I think I'll cross-post my last drabble to LJ, see if anyone reads it.
*posts*
Might as well look at my flist there too
*reads, gets distracted*
Better fold the clothes while they're warm so they don't get wrinkled.
*sorts socks and folds clothes*
*repeat until day is completely wasted*

Procrastination you are a fickle friend.
*head desk*

I fail to understand why Star Trek is not in this house yet. Mrrrrrr.

Bad news x 1.5 tonight. Will there be 1.5 more, or did the .5 mess the 3 Superstition up?

I have botched painting my nails so badly tonight that I fear going to bed for the smudging. The darn nail lengthener better work!! I tried using glitter this time to hide the flaws the lengthener creates (lotsa bubbles) and omggggg. Glitter splosion. And who wants glitter all over the covers and sheets? *stays up*

Holes are annoying.

Still feeling kinda gloaty about the Colts over the Patriots. Muah!

Need to look up the lyrics to Meet Me on the Equinox, evaluate for Snupin potential.

Watched Dr Who. Love the actress who played the captain; her face flashed right out of Mansfield Park at me. Good episode. Running is always goofy fun on Who. Ending a downer (in my opinion only), as usual. Expecting worst in December, that way, if I like it a little, bonus! Tennant cuuuuute. Is he growing more hair?

DeviantArt is insane if it thinks I am paying $15 on sale for cards from them. Also, just once, I wish an artist would make Scorpio pretty.

I made and even uploaded Bones icons, but I'm not quite pleased with them yet. Must fiddle some more.

Ironically, most days, I have even better random thoughts, but of course today I'm all blank. Need to answer comments. I've also stashed a few long comments from replies at other journals...might write them up. Questions have not been forgotten, but omg, I need to start earlier in the day.

Huh, that was a bit complain-y. I better lighten up! *smushes flist*

love, lore

Title: No Pressure
Word Count: 100x4
Pairing: Draco/Severus/Harry
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Threesome, sloppy seconds
draco100 Prompt 67: Under Pressure
Disclaimer: Not mine. They belong to JKR.
A/N: Barely meets the prompt but there's smut! *vbg*

( No Pressure )