Age and Cunning...

I've posted my first contribution to hp_tarot's Round Three.

Title: No Wall Remains
Artist: zephre
Type: Art
Main character or Pairing: Severus Snape/Luna Lovegood
Rating: PG-13

See the full header and art at hp_tarot:

No Wall Remains

1) I hate being sick. I really, really hate being at that level of sick where I say, "Oh, I could work" (do laundry, wash dishes, go shopping for school supplies), until I start to do something for three minutes and realize that I'm exhausted and aching. As long as I don't move (and I drink a lot of hot liquids), I feel fine. Sort of. Ignore the sniffles and headache. Did I mention I hate being sick?

2) Formerly-Diebold has announced that the problems with the Ohio vote counts were caused by their antivirus software. As usual, xkcd explains it best.

3) As my child gets ready to enter her third year at The School With The Principal Who Hates Us, I'm considering signing up for one of those lawyers-on-retainer plans that works like a medical plan. I expect to need letters from a lawyer sometime this year.

4) Two of my three Cliés have died. :-< I suppose it's time to acquire a real PDA, one that can do internet and whatnot. By the time I scrounge up real motivation in this area, a first-gen iPhone may be what I'm looking for. Or maybe skip that and go looking for an ebook reader with e-Ink, even if they're considerably larger than I want to deal with. (Clié fits in pocket. Sony ebookreader does not.)

5) (because there's always a 5) Acquired Jeff & Maya Bonhoff's new album, Möbius Street. And I've been too sick to listen to it. Waaaah!

Title: The Weight of Water 17/?
Author: Eriador117
Rating: R/NC-17 overall
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Warnings: AU, angst, child abuse, hurt/comfort, under 18, D/s, creature!Harry
Summary: The blood wards on Privet Drive have always been a lie. When the Dursleys are murdered and Harry is arrested, it is up to Severus to find out what has really been going on.
A/N: Partly based on a plot bunny by Mimiheart, who wanted "Some sort of fic where Harry HAS to do whatever he's told if it's a direct order. (I know it was in the movie Ella Enchanted--I want more angst and less comedy from it.)"
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Potterverse, I just play in it from time to time.
Beta'd by Rakina, thanks so much!

( Read more... )

Title: I Can't Believe You Forgot!
Author: coffee_n_cocoa
Rating: PG
Pairing: Harry/Neville
Summary: Neville comes home and Harry tries to put off the inevitable.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe – all recognisable 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.
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 1352
Author's Notes: Written for mnemosyne_1, who asked for Neville/Harry - What do you mean you forgot? Sadly, there is no porn, because the porn fairy is still in Tahiti.


I Can't Believe You Forgot!

I don't want beta readers for me. (That would involve me finishing stories, which apparently is against my religion. Someone needs to tell Eris that I had no intention of founding the First Church of the Endless WIP, and the dozen-odd started fragments on my hard drive would be much shinier as completed stories than as story-glitter.) I want beta readers to inflict themselves mercilessly on people who do post completed stories, or intend-to-complete stories, and point out to them how much BETTER those stories would be with a bit of help.

I followed some rec lists around, and found a story that was claimed to be really, really good. (Not linking to it. I'm too annoyed.) It's ~100k words, in 30 parts on LJ, a House/Chase romance. I enjoyed the first couple of sections, even though they were utterly lacking in smut. The fact that she rated it PG-13 for "suggestive thoughts" should've been a warning.

Then I saw the first "it's." ( Cut for endless SPAG issues )

Can anyone recommend some GOOD, long (25k+ words) House fic? Any pairing. Hell, no pairing. Good characterization & good SPAG is all I ask at this point. Smut would be a wonderful bonus.

ETA: occurs to me that I could list what I do recommend(  behind a cut tag )

Tropical Bitch Fay is turning out to be a pussycat. A rather wet pussycat, but tame all the same. W00T!!

My answers to the "Toot Yer Own Horn" Meme are behind ( this cut... )

Title: The Weight of Water 16/?
Author: Eriador117
Rating: R/NC-17 overall
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Warnings: AU, angst, child abuse, hurt/comfort, under 18, D/s, creature!Harry
Summary: The blood wards on Privet Drive have always been a lie. When the Dursleys are murdered and Harry is arrested, it is up to Severus to find out what has really been going on.
A/N: Partly based on a plot bunny by Mimiheart, who wanted "Some sort of fic where Harry HAS to do whatever he's told if it's a direct order. (I know it was in the movie Ella Enchanted--I want more angst and less comedy from it.)"
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Potterverse, I just play in it from time to time.
Beta'd by Rakina, thanks so much!

( Read more... )

Please to be having you not making your turn into the Tampa Bay area and the northern suburbs. Best case scenario, you will simply break apart and be no more. I hear the mountains of Cuba are great for that.

Thanks so much,
Minxie

p.s. This was unnecessary, Madam.

...at the MPREG archive/link list/what the hell it is and found this one:

"Dumbledore has decided at long last that he wants an heir"

Now I am totally being plagued by Dumbledore/Moody... heh.

Title: Check Mate
Author: lee_west
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Alphard Black and Ignatius Prewett
Summary: Alphard is just out of Hogwarts and meets his cousin Lucretia’s fiance, Ignatius Prewett, who teaches him a few things about chess – and other matters.
Prompt: 28) How the chess set came into the family (it was from one of the grandfathers) for the Obscure Character Challenge at weasley_esque.
Word Count: ~3,300
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.
Author's Note: I hope that the Black Family Tree, which I used as reference, contains a few typos – otherwise, shame on you, JK, and your blatant use of chan. According to the tree, Pollux was thirteen when he sired Walburga.

Thanks to my beta, iamisaac

Check Mate

I've been thinking about the case of Kelly v Arriba Soft. Short synposis: Arriba Soft Corporation, later ditto.com, had an image search engine with thumbnails. Leslie Kelly insisted that their use of his images constituted copyright infringement--these are entire images, resized to thumbnails, offered without permission, for commercial purposes. The courts disagreed; they ruled that thumbnail images are fair use. (There was also an issue of inline linking, "click the thumbnail to see the full image." That part was less resolved--but less relevant to fandom; we don't have a "click on fanfic to open the original book or movie" option.)

PDF of final ruling available at eff.org: 20030707_9th_revised_ruling.pdf; opinion filed February 6, 2002; withdrawn July 7, 2003; re-filed July 7, 2003.

The ruling mentions: "Although Arriba made exact replications of Kelly’s images, the thumbnails were much smaller, lower-resolution images that served an entirely different function than Kelly’s original images." I think of fanfic as working with the textual equivalent of "thumnails" of the original: short snippets that let you identify characters, places, timelines--but with a different purpose from the original. And while, unlike search engines, it's hard to claim that fanfic has a great public benefit, it is easy to claim that it's a creative art--and unlike search engines, it's noncommercial. This may balance out the original first-factor aspect of the ruling.

( Checked against the four factors, with quotes from Wikipedia: )

I am not a lawyer. I am not a law student or paralegal. This is not legal advice. Rather, this is a way to think about the "copying" involved in fanfic and other fanworks: the use of elements created by someone else, edited and arranged for different purposes and a different audience. A work which aguably enhances the market value of the original (and I only say "arguably" because I don't know of any hard statistics, although we seem to all be aware that more fans=more money for original and more fanstuff=more fans).

This, much more than the Acuff-Rose case, may be the legal ruling most relevant to fanworks creators.

(crossposted at my journal & metametameta.)

For those following Antarctica, here, finally, is part 2. I'm not too sure about the rating - it might be edging towards R for sexual allusions, if no real descriptions.

Title: Antarctica
Author: Rakina
Rating: PG13, perhaps, for disturbing themes.
Warnings: Animal sacrifice; a weird kind of Necromancy and an even weirder romance.
Word Count: this section 10,801
Summary: This is the story I didn't write for the Snarry Games, for the genre: Angst and the prompts: The Veil, and Ritual.
Now all his kids are at Hogwarts, Harry's life should be settled and happy. But something's just not right, and it shows in his dreams.  It's Dark and cold, but it's better than the warmth of Real Life, and Harry doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand himself any more.
Beta: hel_bee
Disclaimer: I make no claim to the Harry Potter characters, and no money from them either. I do this for the love of Severus Snape, in particular: a man treated badly and honoured too late.

Part 1


( Antarctica, Part 2 )

ventrous has a poll here about a possible Washington, DC Slashy get together. Go check it out and maybe come play!

ETA There may or may not be Snarry pants involved. Just sayin'.

All assignments have now been sent! Please check your e-mail accounts, if you have not done so already, and if you have not received an e-mail from us, please let us know so that we can resend it. If you have already received your assignment and are willing to accept it, please reply to the e-mail and let us know.

If you have any questions about your assignment or about the fest in general, feel free to e-mail us at snarryholiday@gmail.com (or check out our Rules and FAQ first).

In a few weeks, we'll be posting the header templates for your submissions, and will also make a beta post, for those who wish to offer their services as betas and those who are in need of betas ... so stay tuned for those. In the meantime, have fun with your assignments!

... being silly.

ME: Wow. That's what the sun looks like.
BOY CHILD: Feel up to a walk around the block? Might be nice, yeah?
ME: *looks warily* You know I gotta go slower, you can't use that mile long stride of yours?
BC: *nods*
ME: Okay... *gets sneakers on*


and then, when the house is back in sight...

BC: Shit!
ME: No kidding.
BC: Feel like running through the rain?
ME: Race you!! *giggles and runs through the warm FL rain*

I'm truly exhausted now but it was worth it. The BC hasn't smiled quite like that since this whole health debacle started.

You Are Andale Mono

You are a geek, pure and simple. You spend a lot of time online. In fact, you probably love the internet more than anyone you know. You are picky about design, mostly for readability's sake. You are the type most likely to be irritated by a bad font.

I adore Andale Mono. Sigh.

Title: Far Away as Moonshine, Part III: Seven Years Later
Author: zephre
Rating: PG (R for whole fic)
Prompt: 100quills table 50.2: Passion
Word Count: 2,098
Summary: For Draco Malfoy, the war was one endless nightmare. Until Luna Lovegood gave him a reason to hope. Can he find his courage, make his luck, and become more than a pawn to those in power?
Warnings: (for whole fic, highlight to view) *mature themes, imprisonment, mention of rape, abuse, battlefield violence, various canon and other character deaths, sexual situations*
Concrit Wanted? Sure! Please alert me to typos or errors of continuity.

Chapter Index:
Part I:   1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part II:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ||
Part III: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8


(Chapter 8: In which Draco finds that reality is quite different from dreams.)

Go visit Making Light, where they're slashing the Ball of Kerrimuir.

Lyrics border on notworksafe. But there's a whole lot of gaelic accent spelled phonetically, so it's probably not a problem. Also, is text only.