Pass me the biscuits, Mirandy!

Fic for: fanficforensics
Title: Subtlety Personified
Author: to be revealed

Pairing: Snape/Slughorn
Rating: PG
Warnings/Content Info: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings:
[None]
Summary: Horace Slughorn has quite looked forward to the Special Christmas Edition of the Daily Prophet. And it doesn't disappoint: a two-page spread on what really happened at Hogwarts' the year Snape was Headmaster.
Disclaimer: The world of HP and its characters belongs to Rowling. The author of this fic has borrowed them for the purposes of storytelling. No profit was or will be made.
Word count: ~5,360
Author Notes: [beta acknowledgements will be replaced after reveals]
Obviously, all newspaper articles quoted in this story are the property of the Daily Prophet and Ms. Rita Skeeter.

You asked for Snape is Headmaster. Horace Slughorn figures out which side he's on and manages to provide some form of invaluable assistance. (Another staff member would also be nice. More Hogwarts staff fic, more!) A dream of a prompt. I hope I did it justice. Have a lovely, snapely Christmas!

( Fic for fanficforensics )

x-posted to DreamWidth & LiveJournal

Er.. that is, yay! for my gift exchange fic from Snupin Santa. smiley wink

Half-naked, hungover Snape definitely makes an appearance. *g* It's funny, warm, charming and cowboy!Remus and stubbornly horny Snape are just divine. Go R&R!

Mad Wolves and Englishmen

Just the thing to help clear the remnants of this lingering migraine and perk me up a bit.

Title: Anon', for xterm

From: Your Secret Snupin Santa

Summary: Xterm's Snupin Santa prompt: It was Snape who was having a relationship with Sirius. Remus knew but didn't like to interfere with friends' affairs. After Sirius's death, Remus at first ignores Snape's pain but then tries to comfort him. One major twist I want though is Remus wants to be Snape's man friend, not a boyfriend... may include Tonks

Rated: Gingersnaps (PG13)

Other pairing: Severus/Sirius

Word count: 9090

Notes: Dear Recipient,
Set after the end of the war. I have tried to stick to canon as much as possible as per request, but some things may not add up; I hope you forgive those bits! I have tried really hard to avoid fluff, though I worry a little may have slipped in, but hey, it’s good for the soul. I also have to admit that your prompt flummoxed me in some ways, so I have done, to the best of my abilities, what I thought you wanted. Hope we have the same understanding of the term ‘man friend’. Hope you enjoy it, happy crimble!

Blessings,
Your secret Snupin Santa

Many thanks to star Beta who saved me from pointy sticks! Sorry about the ‘swill’, but it stays!

She's 17 today. This evening at 9:12pm, actually. *ahem*

She's not who I expected her to be 17 years ago; I had no idea then what to expect. She's been an adventure and a journey and a companion and an interesting mixture of absolute joy and crazy frustration.

She's such a different person every day that I wonder who she'll be today.

I'm off to make her birthday cake, which is this one every year.

Stasia

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* I generally make the presumption that, unless indipendently verified, everything I read on the internet is fiction. Every personality construct to whom Live Journal lets me speak has just as much chance of being a 12 year old girl from Peoria, as being what and who they say they are. (If they type with an "Irish" accent, I bump the odds for Peoria significantly higher, by the way.) If I send money to someone's rescue cause for a friend of a friend whom I've never met, I'm aware that I might possibly be sending money to some 12 year old in Peoria, and in that regard, I consider that I'm paying for a good story. It's just like buying a lottery ticket -- I'm not buying 12 million dollars, and I know it. What I'm buying is the ticket to dream of SPENDING that 12 million dollars, or whatever of it Uncle Sam lets me keep. So when I send money to someone's 'a person I know got booted to the kerb and is living in her car' fund, I'm buying a ticket to imagine doing a little good for someone who needs the help, not pulling a superhero dive to pluck someone off the train tracks. It's all illusion, except for what I can prove by experience, or can find someone I trust to vouch for, but it's an illusion I'm willing to venerate at least as much as the illusion that Daniel Radcliffe is a wizard, Chris Pine is a space captain, and John Barrowman is omnisexual and immortal. I realize there's a chance (a very good chance) they're not who they say they are, but pretending is fun.

* That said, I know there are a lot of people who feel deeply betrayed when they learn that someone on the internet was not who they claimed to be. I have seen sockpuppet wanks the like of which could make Cod weep in his watery heaven, and this is over an offhanded 'I wanted to make you feel better' sort of deception, wherein no money was involved. There are people out there who make deep emotional investments in the friendships they make online, and when something like the Than-Fiction finally blows its cover, the aftershocks tend to be as deeply wounding to them as the initial sense of betrayal was. They question everyone they 'know', they doubt everything they've heard about anyone they haven't seen face to face, and generally the sense that 'you're all just a lying pack of cards' can steal over the place.

* I've been thinking about this lately, because earlier this year, I did use my internet 'fame' to raise money for a cause. And a lot of people kicked money into that cause, not knowing for sure if the person I was claiming to help was real, or entirely made up. (Now the truth is, a lot of the people who kicked into that fund knew the beneficiary personally, and knew what she was going through, or know me personally, and trust my word as good, but that's friendship, not pure altruism, and while just as worthy, it's different.) When people use their online personae to steal from and decieve people, it takes a swat at any of us who HAVE shilled money to help our friends in need. It injects a sore spot of suspicion into people who needed that moment of altruism to be sound, and good, but instead now find that it's foolish, and weak. It betrays the spirit of altruism on a fundamental level that just spreads through a community like a cancer of doubt. It is for THAT, I am angry. Not because I was fooled myself -- as I said above, I come to the internet expecting illusion. It's because of the poison that's flowing in the water now, with no way to leach it out. All we can do is wait for the stink to pass.

* To all of you who, in your altruism and generousity, donated to my Spider Rescue fund earlier this year, especially those of you who are now watching the Than-Fiction devolve over on Fandom Wank, I can't offer you any kind of proof that what you did was helpful, real, and immeasurably valid in a person's life (several people, because it was an amazing experience for me, as well, and I only handled the money and the cards.) I can't offer you anything in this medium which couldn't be argued away by a concerted effort. I really wish I could, but I respect your individual intelligences too much for that. So instead of trying to find some kind of lasting or concrete cred that despite being slightly larger than life, I am exactly who I've always claimed to be***, I will just thank you for having had faith enough, back then, to be helpful. And to hope that you don't find yourself regretting the help you gave now, because inasmuch as the word of an internet stranger can mean anything, I promise you your help DID make a difference.

* I know a lot of these thoughtbytes today have orbited the same hub. That's not a normal approach for this type of essay, but it's been on my mind for a few days, and I just needed to spin some words on it from my little corner of Baker Street. We now return you to your regularly scheduled randomness.

* General Foods makes their International Coffees line... it's something of a guilty pleasure for me. I mean I'm not a HUGE fan, since the fake milk and preservative aftertaste is kind of an inescapable thing, but sometimes when I don't want to brew up a pot, or go out for a shot, I do enjoy a cup of instant indulgence. In general, they're sweeter than I like, but they come out with some seasonal ones that I am really enjoying. Like today: Peppermint mocha. My Achilles' heel of coffee drinks, I do believe. The only one more dangerous is a good, spicy Mayan mocha, but only the Ultraviolet Cafe's ever managed to make it hot enough to really be good.

* So I took some time last night to read through <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/hp_kinkfest/2928.html">the prompts</a> for <lj-comm=HP_Kinkfest>. Phoar! I won't be doing any claiming, but I'm bloody well downloading that list for future reference when I get stuck for ideas! (Mmmm... figging!)

* So we heard from the Exorcists about my desktop. The problem was unreplicatable. Hence, Vajra will be sent home with only a few very expensive dribbles of dried holy water on her case, and a stern talking-to. *SIGH!* Why, electronics? WHY? Ah well. <a href="http://www.nightwatchmanchronicles.com/Newspaper/NW1Feb08.htm">At least it's not just me.</a> I do wonder, though, whether any of the other Electrical People could make people bleed via mere proximithy...

* Sirocco ransacked my violets today. I'd moved them out of the bathroom, into the kitchen, in the hopes of better care. But the trouble is that Herself is still managing to get up on top of the kitchen cabinets to lurk, and so her jumping down led to massive violet-plant wipeout. She even broke a marble urn I was using as a watercatch for one of them. That cat is my own force of nature, apparently. She also managed to knock my computer off the table the other day, so it landed directly on my thumb drive, and bent it nearly 45 degrees. I bent it back to straight, and it seemed at the time as though everything was intact, but I decided it was better not to risk it. I went and got a replacement -- twice the storage... and it's <a href="http://www3.pny.com/4GB-Micro-Swivel-Attach---GREEN-P2852C430.aspx">the size of a piece of gum.</a> I'm kinda enraptured with it, really. Might start wearing it as an earring.

* Or, y'know, not.

* Next step for the house, is to apply plumber's wrap to the heating pipes in the basement, and cut down the transfer-loss from the furnace to the radiators. I had done a lot of the pipes the first year we moved in, but when we had the flood, the contractors ripped a lot of that out in order to get at the pipes they needed to replace. And when I say 'ripped', of course, I do mean that. There was very little of what they removed that could be put back onto the pipes. Most of it went into Jock, the cat's scratching-monster, in fact. So we've ordered the wrap, which should get here sometime soon after Solstice. Then we just need the get 'er done!

* And in that same spirit... once the Solstice party this Saturday's over, we'll be back in the shoe room, stripping it to the studs. Whee! We've finally given up all hope of being able to repair that room as-was, and have decided to just strip it bare, get at the plumbing and wiring we need to access, and then totally rebuild the damned thing. I'm kinda looking forward to it, actually. We're re-using the built-in bookcases that never did much good in that tiny, closet-sized space, in the library (once we find a home for that damned roll top desk, that is...) and we're going to save the decorative molding, in case any of it can be reused once we're done, but that weird little mid-hall bulge of a room is going to become our new Mudroom. We'll add an exterior door where its window is, move the radiator to the right side wall, and build a cabinet around it (with a cut-tin face and marble top, of course,) and build in a coat/hat/boot bench along the back wall. Then, once we get the driveway and parking pad, and porte cochere in place the entrance will be directly connected to where the cars are. Guests will still come in through the front door and entry parlour, but the family entrance, and all the day to day detritus that goes along with it, will be out of sight behind a nice pocket door.

* I tend to think that, now we've committed to going all the damned way with this project, it'll manage to roll rather better along than it had been. I choose to believe it so. Lo, my forcible optimism; it is mightier than the strength of ten men's mathematics.

* I am becoming aware of yet another of Mandala House's ghosts these days. I know him by the smell of his cigarettes, and I suspect that he resents my plans for the mud room. (I think it was on his watch that the bookcases were built in there, and the atrocious panelling was added.) He's going to have to cope with his bad self though, because Mandala House herself rather digs the idea of her Foyer being a proper greeting for the elegant lady she truly is, and is a bit giddy at the idea of getting all our grotty old boots and hats out of sight. Cigarette Smell isn't doing anything worse than a little grumbling at present, and I don't get any real meanness from him, but he's still not best pleased. I don't think he likes cats, either. Now I think about it, I wonder if he's not part of Godric's sprahying problem... Hmm... *Breaks out white sage*

* And now, I'm gettin outta this place! I been here too long. Gonna climb the walls. No, I need's me a new viewport, is all. Me and Argentyne are gonna go pirate some signal, and bang out some prose together on somebody else's turf. Ciao, all!

*** Barring clearly marked posts in which I pretend to be fictitional characters, including, but not limited to, Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Severus Snape, Harry Potte, et al, my cats, my house, or my internal organs. These should present to actual confusion to the savvy reader, I promise.

I noticed that

scribbulus_ink was encouraging people to note RL/SS stories in other fests, so I thought I'd let everyone know about this one in case you missed it. There's a lovely RL/SS story at

snapelyholidays called 'Misery Loves Company'.

Title: Misery Loves Company
Rating: R
Warnings/Content Info: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings:[Minor Canon Character Death prior to the beginning of the fic, extremely disrespectful!Snape, AU after Oct 31, 1981]
Summary: Once Snape and Lupin have hit rock bottom, there's nowhere for them to go but up. Against all odds, they might even do it together.
Word count: ~10,800

Title: Hell Kitten
Author:

sweetmelodykiss
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Severus/Neville Longbottom
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None
Word Count: 433

advent_drabbles Prompt 15: Holly and Ivy
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters herein.

( Hell Kitten )

Title: Mad Wolves and Englishmen, for odogoddess

From: Your Secret Snupin Santa

Summary: When two quarreling Order members are sent on holiday together, they quickly discover that Albus Dumbledore is a strong believer in ‘bonding through adversity’. In this case, ‘adversity’ is a town called Purgatory, Texas.

Rated: Coal and Switches (NC17)

Notes: Dearest odogoddess – It was such a delight to write for you. I made a few small changes to your prompt to get the story to work, but I hope you’ll still enjoy it. Sadly, I had to leave out ‘tea-bagging’ so I added an extra dose of h/c and smex to make up for it. Many thanks to my long-suffering and unbelievably wonderful betas/brit-pickers who must for now remain nameless. I honestly could not have made it through this without your help and cheerleading. The title is taken from a Noel Coward song, the refrain of which goes “Mad dogs and Englishmen / go out in the midday sun”. The characters of Arley Wheelis and Opal Bellmiller are inspired by (if not outright based upon) characters from the hilarious play “Greater Tuna”

Word count: 17435

So, maybe you remember how I was thinking of riffing on "Lay All Your Love on Me" to get it out of my system?

Here.

:-)

We're halfway through the month with lots more Snape-centric goodies to come! It's been really great to see the broader mix this year of Snapely Holidays entries (in most, if not all, areas), which is, of course, what this exchange is about - highlighting Snape in all his many guises. :)

*modly nudge* Let's take time when we can to give the writers and artists some acknowledgement, in appreciation of the work we've been able to enjoy! Thanks!

December 8 - art for

alchemia, 'Snape's Apprentice' SS/HP [G]

December 9 - fic for

scribbulus_ink, 'Complicated But Lovingly Drawn' SS/RL [NC-17]

December 10 - fic for

leni_jess, 'Magical Hazard: Handle With Care' SS/NL [PG]

December 11 - fic for

atdelphi, 'The Caretaker', SS/AF [R]

December 12 - fic for

irena_candy, 'Of Rhinos and Men' SS/AM [NC-17]

December 13 - Art for

eriwren, 'Bound To Please' SS/HP [R]

December 14 - fic for

karasu_hime, 'Misery Loves Company' SS/RL [NC-17]

Fic for: eeyore9990
Title: Out of This World
Author: to be revealed

Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Rating: PG
Warnings/Content Info: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings:
[Severus Snape/Hermione Granger (in potential; pre-het, you might say). AU in that Snape's alive, and EWE, in part. One Epilogue birth date moved earlier.]
Summary: Severus Snape has found a refuge from the wizarding world. Then Granger intrudes, accompanied by Malfoy, followed by Malfoy, Malfoy, and Malfoy, bringing with them Malfoy, Malfoy and Malfoy. What next? The Ministry? Or merely trouble and endless vexation?
Disclaimer: The world of HP and its characters belongs to Rowling. The author of this fic has borrowed them for the purposes of storytelling. No profit was or will be made.
Word count: ~8,630
Author Notes:

eeyore9990, I hope this pleases you, even if I am clean out of kink this holiday season! Thanks so much to my beta readers, K and J, who helped me improve the fic; and to the mods for their saintly patience.

( Fic for eeyore9990 )

x-posted to DreamWidth & LiveJournal

Title: Better Angle
Author:

sweetmelodykiss
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Severus/Alastair Moody
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None
Word Count: 221

advent_drabbles Prompt 14: Naughty or Nice
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters herein.

( Better Angle )

Tuesday November 17, 2009 "South Africa's intelligence services after 1948 had more reason than most to keep their stories silent. Apartheid made South Africa a polecat among nations, and by the end of the National Party's reign South Africa was a pariah state even among countries that were hardly squeamish about getting their hands dirty with the more nefarious elements of statecraft. When the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain's MI5 and MI6 think that your methods are contemptible, your methods are probably beyond contemptible."
Citation: Derek Catsam. Review of Sanders, James, _Apartheid's Friends: The Rise and Fall of the South African Secret Services_. H-SAfrica, H-Net Reviews. November, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25562

***Left books and magazines at the 38th St. LRT station.

To the food shelf at Minnehaha United Methodist Church.

As I walked back to the Hiawatha Line, I saw a father and child on a two-seater bicycle.

At the 38th St. station, I saw that most of the books and some of the magazines had been taken.

Wednesday November 18, 2009 The small grocery down the street has injera: the Ethiopian bread made from teff (mostly) which looks like a sponge. And another East African bread I hadn't seen before, made entirely of wheat.

Title: The Howling Moon, for real-life-rosy

From: Your Secret Snupin Santa

Summary: Something happened in the Shrieking Shack that no one had anticipated. The aftermath may be more than any of them is prepared to handle.

Rated: Coal and Switches (NC17)

Pairings: Severus/Remus, references to: Severus/Lily, Lily/James

Content: underage sexual activity among same-age teens, frottage, oral, hand-job, dub/non-con, bestiality/werewolf sex, angst, smoking

Author's Notes: This story diverges from canon around the time of the Shrieking Shack incident, for reasons which will (hopefully) be apparent from the text. A very merry Snupiny Season to you, real-life-rosy! I had to tweak your prompt a bit, but I hope you enjoy this anyway!

Word count: 17370

(No, don't ask me to pronounce it. I have more respect for the language than to try.)

I have a snake in my bathtub, soaking her skin off while her sister considers the nicities of snake metabolism, and hunger.

I have cats which I have not yet drowned in the aforementioned bathtub (through no lack of provokation on their part, I assure you.)

I have no more feliway spray left.

I do, however, have new, sparkly bookses.

I have leftovers from a celebratory lunch of which

aquila_dominus and I partook today, which we shall be revisiting for dinner, most likely.

I have a sore ear, and tonsil to match on the left side.

I have a party approaching this saturday, for which I have neither cooked, nor cleaned a single thing.

I have an exercize machine leering at me from the other room, and a slice of cheesecake (shared,) to justify before I settle for the night.

And all of this falls to the wayside in the face of today's ACTUAL triumph:

I HAVE CLAPBOARD ON MY HOUSE!!!!!

It isn't painted, and the caulk may well take another week to cure in these temperatures, BUT IT'S UP! And despite the fact that the shoe room looks like a warzone from the inside, it no longer feels like Dis Pater's left nutsack in there! In fact, ironically enough, it's actually just a touch warmer inside the closed off room than elsewhere in the house. Which means we did the insulation, at least, right.

*High5's the Effin WORLD!*

And now? Octopi hijacking coconut shells. Because it's cute, is why!

Title: Love Thy Enemy, for soda-and-capes

From: Your Secret Snupin Santa

Summary: Something could be said about love. It is not always black and white.

Rated: Coal and Switches (NC17)

Warnings/Kinks: DH Compliant, Angst, Slash, Implied Het, Character Death

Author's Notes: I would like C and P for being my betas at the last moments. I had so much fun doing this fic.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe – all recognizable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work

Other Pairing: Remus/Tonks

Word count: 1587

Fic for: karasu_hime
Title: Misery Loves Company
Author: to be revealed

Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Rating: R
Warnings/Content Info: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings:
[Minor Canon Character Death prior to the beginning of the fic, extremely disrespectful!Snape, AU after Oct 31, 1981]
Summary: Once Snape and Lupin have hit rock bottom, there's nowhere for them to go but up. Against all odds, they might even do it together.
Disclaimer: The world of HP and its characters belongs to Rowling. The author of this fic has borrowed them for the purposes of storytelling. No profit was or will be made.
Word count: ~10,800
Author Notes: [beta acknowledgements will be replaced after reveals] It is my fondest hope that this fic is everything you ever wanted,

karasu_hime!

Thanks also to

odogoddess for continuing to run an utterly fantastic fest.

( Fic for karasu_hime )

x-posted to DreamWidth & LiveJournal

chazpure had a 24 hour bug last weekend that in me, with my compromised immune system, turned into two days of miserable fever, wracking joint pain/muscle weakness and near-constant sleep, followed by two more days of slow recovery. The weather seemed to be in sympathy with me, as it's been beautifully gloomy, cloud-shrouded w/rain, rain, rain with a real pisser of a storm hitting last night.

I finally felt well enough to be up and about Friday. Just in time for

chazpure's holiday office party yesterday. Craziness. Plus a gluten incident, fortunately kept down to a few hours of severe unpleasantness due to my caution, but bleah. :( That's been my first one in ages, and we were both pleased to note my overall improvements, health-wise, made the exposure not as horrible as it might have once been.

I know some might think I have no health improvement, but I really do. It's just I've gone from being severely-immune compromised to having a weak immune function. The ticket is that it's gone from being basically non-functioning to starting to do it's job, just not quite so robustly or rapidly as a healthy person's. This latest bug is a good example. Used to be

chazpure would bring home a 24 hour bug from work, which I would catch as surely as Harry gets the snitch, and it would make me ill for a week, and would allow in further opportunistic infections and before long I'd have been sick for two months. Now, her 24 hour bug took me about 3 days to get over the worst and two more days to fully recover. Let's hope the improvements continue!

Of course, with all this, it means poor

chazpure has been handling

snapelyholidays and quite well, I might add, considering her horrendously busy schedule and overlong workdays. I probably don't say it as often as I should, but Chaz is a treasure. kissblush

I haven't caught up yet, on-line wise, except for getting a handle on the necessaries, but I did see these:

Alan Rickman on HP
http://vimeo.com/8048595

Alan on the directors of HP.
http://vimeo.com/8086129

Alan (finally!) chats ab't DH & gives us some tantalising tidbits.
http://vimeo.com/8090783

Which I'm sure most of you have already had a gander at. Way behind on the exchanges, natch, but hope to catch up. Looks like some scrummy art and good reading out there. :)

Writing this from Kinko's (now FedEx Office, but it's still Kinko's to me and I like the thought of a place with "kink" in it's name) because thanks to the storms, we've had no power in the house since noon or so and we'll have to wait and see if we have any when we return. *crossing fingers*

So much to do! Can't do it in the dark. *pouts* Well, not this kind of stuff...

Thanks to everyone who sent a veritable snowflake storm on LJ! Those were very kind. :) We've got the real stuff falling close by, believe me. The air is *icy*. Our local mountains are nicely blanketed. *shivers*

Time to move on from here before they close and we freeze! Laters!