Exploding Poohsticks

Title: Aftermaths, Part 7
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~8,040
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: Blaise's sister tests Snape's patience, and Lupin, Snape, and the boys get a chance to visit Professor Blackmore's ancestral home.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Title: Aftermaths, Part 6
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~9,920
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: Snape, Lupin, and the boys visit the Zabinis' shop in Diagon Alley.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

( Read more... )

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

I think I saw the first Kizuna OVA before I read any yaoi manga, so that was probably my introduction into yaoi. However, the first manga titles that I bought were Only the Ring Finger Knows and Golden Cain.

Get Your Sexy Name

Goodness.

Only just wading through my overflowing friends page. So thank you's to: iibnf, mabiana, ariadneelda, venturous, maddiec24, dacro, r_grayjoy, quiescent

for the well-wishes!

If I missed you, I probably haven't seen your post yet. I might not until much later, either, as I must get ready for a very rare night out with my beautiful spouse, who is going to take me somewhere (I don't know where) for my birthday. :D

*looking forward to it!*

Title: Aftermaths, Part 5
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~8,330
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: Draco and Narcissa have dinner at Grimmauld Place; Draco and Damien pay a visit to the Lupin-Snape household.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Title: Aftermaths, Part 4
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~9,920
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: Theodore and Dylan spend their first full moon with Lupin; Draco reluctantly adjusts to his new status in life.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Title: Aftermaths, Part 3
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~9,650
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: Lupin and Snape's new family seems to be getting along well until Theodore receives a letter from Blaise...

Part 1, Part 2

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....

You've been a fixture around the fandom for ages, and the place would feel terribly empty without you here. You have so much enthusiasm for fandom and put so much into it, from writing to reading to reccing to running fests. It's really fantastic and inspiring to see.

Of course, I love seeing your posts whether they're fandom-centric or not. They're always interesting, and I'm impressed by what an intelligent, diverse, and involved person you are. In addition to all of that, you're nice, friendly, caring, and approachable. You're one of the people who helps to make fandom feel like a community to me, and I appreciate that more than you can imagine. Thanks for everything!

Happy Birthday!!!

If you don't know what the heck this is all about, the explanation is here.

Also, OMG, two-thirds of the way through the month! I can't believe I've lasted this long...

Christ in a crock pot, Cel, I wish I were half as together as you. It seems like you spend nearly every waking hour being productive in some way, and damn, I admire and envy that. You're one of the most motivated and down-to-earth people I know, and clearly a force to be reckoned with. You're also one of the most bold. You rarely hold back from stating your position on subjects in the most direct terms, and while I might not always agree with what you have to say (although I probably do at least 80% of the time), I appreciate your courage and honesty. You seem to have the same sort of confidence in your writing. You're probably the least likely person on my f-list to wibble about whether a fic is up to par. The confidence is entirely appropriate, though. You're a talented writer who write some of the most entertaining and captivating fics I've read.

Beyond all of those things, though -- or perhaps in spite of them -- you're genuinely nice, friendly, and a lovely person to be around. It's unfortunate that's I've been a little out-of-it and brainless on the occasions I've been able to see you. I hope I have another opportunity to prove I'm not always floating around in outer orbit. ;)

If you don't know what the heck this is all about, the explanation is here.

Once I finally had my snapelyholidays fic submitted, I turned to helping ragdoll sort out assignments for wizard_love. WOW, that was quite a task. Nearly everyone requested a range of pairings, so it wasn't really a matter of matching the Snermione people together or the Luna people together; we had to look for specific pairings in common and make sure the types and degree of kinkiness were a good fit and and and. Yeah, it took a while.

We got all 67 assignments sent out yesterday evening and on time, though. Of those, 43 have already reported back to let us know they've been received. So far everyone sounds happy (some of them very, very happy) with their assignments, which is awesome. One person felt that they didn't get a good match, but we did some juggling and fixed that problem right away. So all is well on that front.

In other news, we've started getting a few things in for daily_deviant's Kinky Kristmas, and OMG! December on the comm is going to be awesome. I know there will be tons of holiday fests happening, but you all really want to watch Kinky Kristmas. Trust me.

I'm so looking forward to the holiday fests this year!! …Is it too early to switch to my holiday default icon..?

Title: Aftermaths, Part 2
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~9,430
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: The trip to the Nott mansion brings back bad memories for Theodore.

Part 1

( Read more... )

Continuing with the reposting of my old Snupin fics. As with Phoenix Rising, I'm not sure exactly how many chapters this will run as I'm still dividing the story up into LJ-sized posts, but the story is complete, and I'll correct the headers when I'm done.

Title: Aftermaths, Part 1
Rating: NC-17 overall, but most chapters are closer to PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word count: ~8,750
Warning: AU; written pre-HBP
Author's notes: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising
Summary: The various characters deal with the aftermath of the war; Snape, Lupin, Dylan, and Theodore adjust to being a family.

You're a bit of an irregularity on my f-list in that you're one of the few fandom people I think I came to know personally before I was really very familiar with your writing and art. Our "usual" pairings don't have much overlap, so I don't think I'd seen a lot of your stuff before we met at Sectus. I've made a point to read quite a bit more of your work since then, though, and I'm glad I have. You're a great writer, your characters are complex and interesting, and you do dark and creepy just as well as light and warm-fuzzy. You have a lot of talent and a huge amount of motivation, and absolutely deserve to be ridiculously successful. On a more personal note, though, you're a lot of fun to spend time with, and I hope we'll get to see each other again eventually. I don't keep in touch like I should, but you come into my mind a lot. You are made of 100% pure awesome.

If you don't know what the heck this is all about, the explanation is here.

Ever since Glee 1x08 aired here, I wake up every morning and go to YT to watch Puck's cover for Sweet Caroline. I am so in love with this scene!

I wish Puck/Rachel gets more canon, but I'm not holding my breath. :(

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

I only recently read Love Control by Ai Hasukawa, but it's quickly become one of my all-time favorite yaoi manga titles! The premise is that interior designer Yamashiro is annoyed that his client Okumura is always flirting with him. He thinks that Okumura is merely toying with him, and as revenge, he decides to make Okumura fall in love with him for real, to reverse their positions so that he'll be in the one in control, playing with Okumura's feelings. But as one might expect, the hunter becomes the hunted, and Yamashiro finds himself falling for Okumura in earnest.

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

The snapelyholidays Fic That Ate My Life has been submitted!!! \o/

I ♥ My Betas!!!

They pointed out lots of great stuff and made some fantastic suggestions. It took me three days to edit and revise the beast. LOL

I'm looking forward to seeing this one posted. :D

...Did I mention that I ♥ my betas??