Harry Potter Fanart

bulletpoints!

- Although I managed surprisingly well on cards last year, there's no way I'm going to manage this year. I'm slightly bummed about this, but I think I'll just resolve to send more random letters throughout the year as that's way more fun to receive.

- I made adorable cupcakes at work again. I wish I had an excuse to make them at home, or a whole lot more people to foist them off on.

- The last two episodes of Fringe made me all excited and giddy, even with a brief Not Sure If Want moment in there. I need to get over my tendency to want to fit things neatly in canon and just write the smushy porn that I want to write.

- There is absolutely no way to reply to an anon thread with you as the subject without a) being a dick, b) encouraging the drama, and c) being a dick. I replied anyway.

- There is absolutely no way to blog/tweet/mention replying to an anon thread with you as the subject without encouraging the drama and being a bit of a dick, but it made me laugh. Oh, people.

- I had this big complicated adventure dream with JDM in it last night. It was awesome. Then I had to get up and go to work, which was less awesome, even though our new brunch cook made me Huevos for breakfast.

- Speaking of our new cook, she's been teaching J how to make stuff. Including this awesome grilled tomato salsa which is downstairs right now, calling to me. She's the best.

- I severely need a nap, but if I sleep now I'll wake up at the time which I should be going to bed. Conflict.

*looks @ fic*

*looks @ scratch notes*

It really takes a special kind of geeky OCD to turn "how are we going to transport these aliens" into a convoluted dimensional analysis problem and then try to turn that lovely long string of Imperial-to-metric-and-back conversions into (hopefully) believable dialogue.

Have also finally chiseled out something vaguely resembling an outline. Sort of. Considering the extremely minimal say-so I appear to have in terms of what is actually happening with this damned thing, I'm sort of pleased to have managed to contain it in 13 chunks/eps/chaps/whatever. For now. This is, after all, The Fic That Wouldn't Stay Dead, and "if I can't kill you, I can contain you" turned out to be canonically (and predictably) untrue. *facepalm* Which isn't to say that they're all written, by any means. Very close to crossing the 60K mark though. *boggles*

Finally finished my S2 rewatch Friday night at work. Amazing how differently some bits come across the second time through.

Also periodically listening to audio of GDL's panels from The New England Fan Experience, which I briefly considered running up to Boston for last week (before deciding that was insane, as it would mean leaving directly from work Saturday morning to have even a prayer of catching his panel that day). Dear Gods, this fandom really has kidnapped my brain. *facepalm*

Oh, and I watched "The Rescue" last night. I don't always watch the special features, but I did this time, and it was interesting to learn that those two eps got the highest ratings of any Who story arc until the Baker years. They were all marveling that it was a bigger draw than the Daleks. I'm marveling that "1st introduction of a new companion" was a bigger draw than "1st regeneration." Which reminds me, tangentially, that ubiquirk just drew my attention to the fact the Doctor is apparently supposed to get younger with each regeneration. Huh. Didn't know Gallifreyans had a common ancestry with Orkians. This has slightly tempered my annoyance that Eleven looks like a teenager. (Does that mean Twelve will need to actually be one? LOL)

Ah well, time to do a bit more writing. 76 more words and I'll hit this week's 5_for_five goal. Whee!

Over on LJ, janissa11 posted about making pumpkin bread. (I cannot seem to type "pumpkin" without putting a "g" on the end of it. Pumpking?) This morning after work I did the shopping for the Thanksgiving feast, and my usual grocery store did not have a single can of plain pumpkin, and only a few of the pumpkin pie mix. I grabbed two of those, just in case I couldn't find any pumpkin anyplace else. As it turned out, the grocery store I almost never go to had 16 oz. cans of plain pumpkin on sale, four for five bucks. So I had to buy four, right? I was feeling rather smug--instead of forgetting something like I usually do, I came home with extra stuff, rare, hard-to-find stuff!

But still, six cans of pumpkin, and I only need two. Inspired by Janissa, I hunted up a recipe for pumpkin bread that uses the pie mix; it's here at the Nestle/Libby's website. The house now smells like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg. I am really looking forward to toasting a piece or two of this bread in the morning.

And as I made the bread, I discovered that I did forget something. We're almost out of sugar. Back to the store tomorrow...

Here's something I did for a Holiday exchange over at Watson's Woes on Livejournal. I'm rather proud of it.


Title: Friends Only Banner
Author: [info]chibitoaster
Characters: Holmes, Watson
Rating: G
Notes: For the Holiday Wishes - Extra Wish #2:
I wish for ART: Winter - not Christmas, winter - themed Friends-only banner, blue/silver/white/grey/etc. color scheme if possible. Snow would be awesome. If using screencaps, Granada Watson(s) would be a plus.

I don't know exactly what size I ought to have made the banner. I hope you can resize it. If not, just let me know, and I'll do it. Hope you like! It was a lot of fun to do!! ^_^

Banner by request

Written for femslash100.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Author: Bitterfig
Title: A Ray of Sunlight
Fandom: Historical
Pairing: Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Challenge #215: Light

( A Ray of Sunlight )

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Diamond In the Sky
Fandom: Runaways
Pairing: Nico/Karolina
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Challenge #215: Light

( Diamond In the Sky )

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Ready to Shine
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Monica/Camille
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Challenge #215: Light

( Ready to Shine )


Author: Bitterfig
Title: Jewel and Star
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Pairing: Kaylee/Inara
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Challenge #215: Light

( Jewel and Star )

I'm busy, busy, busy, trying to finish working on a piece, but I just wanted y'all to see how much the Impertinent Daughter's artwork has improved.



She's come to the attention of the art teacher at her junior high, who has encouraged her to participate in this year's art UIL. And that, in turn, has encouraged her to sign up to take art in high school. Of course, you know I'm incredibly proud!

• 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

Title: In The Rhythm Of Loving You
By: Bridget McKennitt
Pairing: RPS - Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1297
Challenge: supernatural100's prompt spring
Contains: No warnings in as far I know that can't be extrapolated from the header itself. Cheerleader!Jensen, Geek!Jared
Disclaimer: Any real person, location, or organization mentioned in the story below own themselves. This is only a fictional story meant for entertainment and not intended for profit or believing the real people mentioned are like this in real life.
Author's Notes: Set a few days after Jared proposes to Jensen. Part of the Moving At Lightspeed Into Eternity verse. Masterpost with chronological order here.

In The Rhythm Of Loving You

It's me, doing things and having culture and stuff!
that is the entrance to Jones Hall from the underground parking garage that spans the underbelly of the entire Theater District. Cool art, for an underground lair. :D

Brahms was excellent. Mahler was odd. It was a great night.

And because I never posted to my personal journal, here's my Daily_Deviant fic from September!

Title: "Full"
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Enemas, much swearing and insulting of vicars
Summary: “Because I want to,” Remus informed him in a low pitch that sent gooseflesh rippling up Sirius' spine. “Because I want to see just how much you can fucking take before you start begging me to stop. Because I want you to feel just what it would be like to have every inch of your arse straining and stretched until it's indistinguishable from your intestines and all you know and all you are is full.”
Author's notes: I think I need to change my username to "nooneelse" so when these particular themes come up everyone will know that "nooneelse" will right them. :P Written for iJ's alisanne after I promised her something fluffy in the wake of July's necro fic!

Fake cut to Daily_Deviant!

"Full"

November's Daily_Deviant fic... I wrote the alternate pairing this month. For some reason no one wants to write Morfin Gaunt. :P

Title: "Alternatives"
Characters: Morfin Gaunt/Quirrell, Voldemort/Quirrell
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Non-con, Morfin Gaunt, Squickiness, slight crackiness? (Did you see the pairings?) castrati
Word Count: 1520
Summary: Quirrell lays in his bed at night, fidgeting. He used to sleep well, find comfort on his back in the softness of down blankets and the firmness of a good pillow and equally supportive mattress. But now he lays awake for hours, unable to deal with his own bony elbow poking into the side he has to lay on or to adjust to the soft pillow he must use now.
Author's notes: I'm sorry. Where was I supposed to go with this pairing? I mean, really? I think writing Morfin Gaunt in a fluffy romance would be far more terrifying than having him in a darker fic. Right? Right? :P

Fake Cut to Daily_Deviant!

"Alternatives"

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

Spam! Wrote this not long after TDK came out but never posted it. Since the evil twin just wrote Joker/Scarecrow with similar elements, I knew I had to post it as the same time as hers or I'd never do it. Team Porn does Arkham. Arharhrh.


The Frayed Ends
Batman. Batman/Joker. R. ~1000 words. Nolanverse. Violence.
Darkness gathers into a swarm around them and Bruce doesn’t want to let the bastard take one more goddamn breath.


( Read Me. )

Just a little something to get me in the groove for doing homework. Done without access to my usual brushes so there are several big things that make me go DDDD:, but I didn't want to spend more than an hour on this. Warmup means warmup, Pondy.

Avengers. Steve/Tony. G.



( Steve & Tony Warmup Drawing )

I report a happy accident of the kind the Muse she loves to arrange: I searched the Thesaurus for a better word than 'unique' for Ms. Odo, and it gave me 'curious' with this string of possible synonyms. I loved them all.

Thank you for all your wit and wisdom, blessings on you and your family for joy and abundance!

…and I'm a submissive. As in, a contracted and collared sub to my husband, Matt. D/s, BDSM, leather, lifestyle, call it what you will. It is what it is.

Originally, I intended to post something like an introduction because, as my fandoms branch out, there are new people on my flist. And I tend to be loud and opinionated when it comes to head exploding kink fics. Figured offering some insight to me might help explain the tangent rants I sometimes have. Along with the fact that most, if not all, of my fics have some display of power dynamics, no matter how subtle.

I'm sure those of you who know me best find that to be an understatement. Heh.

This has morphed, through conversations with friends, into not only a hey, this is me post, but also one that, for lack of tact on my part, is a whoa! let's think about this before you write it post. Mainly because BDSM comes under enough fire without having misleading works of fiction floating around out there stirring up more trouble than they're worth.

And, honestly, not trying to be a bitch, but if a piece of fiction disregards the basic principles of safe, sane, and consensual they really are more trouble than they're worth. They set a stage for others, those not in the scene, that can lead to misunderstandings, arguments, and, most important, serious injury.

Not cool.

Not when it takes just a few lines of dialogue, or even implied conversation to lend believability and credibility to the work.

To that end, I've started a list. ( Which is actually quite funny seeing as I despise lists. )

Got questions? Ask 'em. I'd rather you ask me something embarrassing than you make my head go splodey in the next fic I run across.

* * *

Whoa! Additional Lifestyle discussions taking place...

irana is talking about consent, SSC, and RACK. You can read that post here.

snapesgirl_62 is talking about polyamory. You can read that post here.

Because... man. We suck.

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or less for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

1. Eli Sunday (There Will Be Blood)
2. Rose Tyler (Dr. Who)
3. Claire Bennett (Heroes)
4. Gwen (Merlin)
5. Kozue (Revolutionary Girl Utena)
6. Tohma (Gravitation)
7. Major Henry West (28 Days Later)
8. Donny aka the Bear Jew (Inglourious Basterds)
9. Tara (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
10. Sansa Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire)


( 15 Words Meme )