. g e e k . i n . t h e . p i n k .

All my writing is now archived at slumber@DW. HP is quite clearly my fandom, though way back in mid-2000 I also dabbled in others (QaF, Kill Bill, Peter Pan, Rainbow Boys, As Told by Ginger, Uptown Girls--yeah, I don't know either :\) and they're all listed here. I'm dividing the HP fics into fics (anything above 1000 words), ficlets (501 to 999 words), and drabbles (500 and under), just because I've too many drabbles. I also added the year I wrote the fic, to (hopefully) excuse my older work. :|

If the way I've organized this is a little off-putting, I have also tagged fics by word count, rating, and character (and there are a lot of minor ones; I didn't realize til I started tagging), so if you'd like to browse through that way, feel free to do so here. Most of it are under the "character" and "fic" tags.

As always, feedback of any sort is always appreciated, even if it may be years behind. Happy reading! ♥

Fics | Ficlets | Drabbles | Other Fandoms

( Ficcage this way. )

hh_sugarquill presents:
Houses of Hogwarts Fest

Sign up here!

Just wanted to pimp this again since sign-ups end tonight and some of the spots are still open!

Particularly, I'm hoping for:

2 Gryffindors
1 Hufflepuff
3 Ravenclaws
2 Hogwarts

Writing about Hogwarts could pretty much be anything that includes house unity themes or maybe just something that involves at least one member of each house. Or maybe it's a study on Hogwarts itself!

Fic requirements is only 700 words minimum, and art needs to be complete/finished.

*bats lashes*

It's been a year since I last drew -- maybe spring is just drawing season?

[Ginny]

I had way too much fun coloring her hair.

[Cho in a red Yule Ball dress]

Because the one she wore in the movies just did not really translate well in PS tbh >.>

[SocietyWife!Pansy]

I loooooved the texture of her dress but alas, it does not come larger than that.

[Ginny, Professional Chaser]

CLOTHES ARE SO HARD.

[Rapunzel!Luna]

One of the prompts in hh_sugarquill is Costumes, and immediately my thought went to Disney.

[Belle!Hermione]

Still on the costumes kick. Imagine Hermione watching Beauty and the Beast -- she'd have been 11/12 when it came out. IMAGINE IT.

hh_sugarquill presents:
Houses of Hogwarts Fest

A fanworks showcase honouring the witches and wizards
of bold Gryffindor, sweet Hufflepuff, fair Ravenclaw, shrewd Slytherin
-- and Hogwarts, where it all began.

You really enjoy pulling the rug out of everyone, and I bet you wonder why everyone hates you. Minus the supremely slick hipster site vibe I'm getting from the design, so far I'm actually liking all these changes.

There's a section that makes Communities easier (possibly) to advertise and browse, which is great because LJ needs its users to use LJ to survive. For a while my LJ usage was floundering until I found hogwartsishome, and with Community Directory so front and center in the nav bar, I think that could be a really good thing for the site.

The Feed tab will take some getting used to, but once I'm on my flist I'm back to the layout I know and love, so the majority of my actual user experience doesn't change. I won't really need Shop or Help, but My Blog leads to some interesting (new? previously hidden?) sections, like statistics. The Tags link there is actually super useful since I've just started working with that section for hh_sugarquill, so I like that it's easier to access now. It felt buried before.

The Post In Blog tab was too far to the right for me (but my monitor is also pretty wide) and not as intuitive as it would have been had it just been placed under My Blog, but the Inbox link is a nice addition. Again, it surfaces previously hard to find links based on, I'm guessing, what people primarily use.

From a cursory look, the rest just looks like it's been given a facelift. I'm meh on the design -- I really wish we as a society can move away from this whole 'light grey text on sterile white background is AWESOME' web design aesthetic; for fuck's sake, I can't read a damn thing -- but the old site was really old. From playing in InsaneJournal (which took LJ's opensource coding and never really added much more to it) I'm not so sure that I'd trade in the ability to edit comments just so I could have subject lines in my comments anymore. It would be good to have both, for sure, but editing comments has been really great for LJ.

But of course, no matter how much LiveJournal improves the site, it will never be able to stop angering its users. Is an email to every registered user so hard to do? Fuck knows I get emails from everyone else for the smallest tweak. Just warn us that shit like this is happening, and maybe, even better, tell us why you're doing it. What user experience pain points are you addressing? What hasn't changed? What can we do better now? What about the features you know we love?

If Livejournal acted like it thought of its users before it did anything, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't annoy so many people as much as it did. But the time to start reaching out was not last week. It was not even last year. It was years ago, when they did this first. Maybe even the second time they did this. But they've done it so often and so unapologetically that the reaction, by now, is Pavlovian. LJ changes something? Fuck, they don't know what they're doing; Of fucking course they did; etc etc.

Oh well. Right now, that's just the way it is. If LJ had had just one competition early on, instead of the five that popped up, it wouldn't be here today. They got lucky.

Us, not so much.

Yes, the Harry Potter fandom is still alive! Come make new friends and relive old moments! Going on now!

Today I used algebra to solve a super minor, totally unimportant, tangential-to-the-actual-point task for a work-related project.

It's been six hours and I am still so proud of myself. (Perhaps prouder of remembering how to find two unknown variables than I am of powering through the project in one morning.)

Carry on.

I hadn't really planned to after last year, but I got a premise and I figured why not. Much, much more slow-going than last year's, which isn't all that surprising because I am pantsing this NaNo instead of planning it.

It's frustrating in some ways because I can't time myself the way I did last year. There's no plot, characters appear out of thin air, and I only have word count goals instead of outline goals. I might very well have 50,000 words at the end, but just the third of a novel. Whether this is better or worse in terms of motivation remains to be seen.

I'm also writing in first person POV, which I kind of prefer not to read and definitely haven't written for a while now, but urgh, for some reason I can't write it in 3rd person limited?

Whatever, I guess. As long as I am hitting daily goals, I think I'll be okay with how this turns out.

Thanks to this, now I ship Sansa/Brienne.

I'm procrastinating filling orders for my shop but for the uninitiated, I'm part of hogwartsishome, which is a sorting community (you fill out an app, you get voted into a house) that turns into a landcomm filled with tons of procrastinate-y things to do. Among the procrastinate-y things it does is hogsmeadewkends, which basically stuffs Friday-Sunday with all kinds of activities (puzzles, writing challenges, graphic challenges, social, etc).

Well, one of the activities is a fic and art (and manip) exchange, and I'd not put any requests in until the last minute, but now I wish I had, because I had some of the best presents.

My prompts:
- Harry and Ron are drift-compatible. Draco and Lucius pilot Striker Eureka. READY SET GO
- Remus Lupin is a teen wolf
- Luna's mum: former Night Vale resident
- Sherlock investigates an incident regarding the disappearance of hundreds of students every first of September at King's Cross.
- Bellatrix found four horsemen. Harry and Luna go to Sleepy Hollow to stop her.
- Hermione Granger: Doctor's companion

( And in the order they were received...Collapse )

Cackling with so much glee. Everything but Night Vale was done, SO doing the same crack crossover thing next Hogsmeade. \o/

Look I did a thing

Title: no need for nervousness (it's just a little turbulence)
Creator username (LJ or tumblr, etc.): slumber (Tumblr user slumber-at)
Pairing(s): Stiles/Danny, Scott/Allison, Ethan/Danny
Rating: Teen and up
Word Count: ~19,000
Notes: Many many thanks to my beta wasureneba, theaeblackthorn for encouraging me to sign up, lautre_m for the awesome prompt that launched almost 20k words, and the mods for running this amazing fest!
Summary: In which Stiles is a conman for hire, Danny is the hacker of his dreams, and Argent Industries is their target.

( 'This is not what I signed up for,' Danny reminds Stiles for the umpteenth time. Stils is tying Danny's tie in the worst possible way, but Danny feels awkward enough as it is so he just lets him mangle it. He's nervous as fuck and he can't figure out if it's because of what they're about to do or because Stiles's hands are on him. )

a) it was going around and b) I haven't updated this month. <.< >.>

Take the test here.

Samantha Stephens: Samantha Stephens is the sweet and loveable main character of the show Bewitched. A witch who has decided to marry a mortal husband, Darrin, Samantha endures rejection and ridicule by much of her magical family. She is remarkably patient with the difficulties caused by her magical relatives, is a loving wife and mother, and is also very clever. She often cannot resist using her magical powers to get her family out of the problems that they face, despite her promise to Darrin that she would live as a mortal.

You are most similar to:
Samantha Stephens
Dr. Donald Mallard
Chandler Bing
Jim
Pam

You are least similar to:
Betty Draper
Bart Simpson
Michael Scott
Dwight
The Skipper

...I wish I knew these half of these fandoms. :|

Superheroes: Spiderman
Game of Thrones: Tyrion Lannister
Lord of the Rings: Legolas (...lol)
Harry Potter: Albus Dumbledore
Scifi: Yoda

...IDK.

I probably owe you an actual update, but distractions are funner:

Caroline and I are running The Last Station over on IJ (See here for info) and it's basically a light post-Hogwarts rebuild that's also set in Hogsmeade, so there's a lot of opportunity for interaction with pretty much anyone in the game. Somehow we've gotten pretty Hufflepuff-heavy (a surprise for me, tbh; most games I've been in had more snakes normally) so there's a temporary cap on them, but everyone else is fair game. We would REALLY appreciate more Ravenclaws, though. Like. We have a grand total of one, how did this happen.

The concept is a live-work community, so any shop owners (in particular, we need more dining options; no one wants to keep eating at The Three Broomsticks, yo) or shopkeepers are welcome--there's room for developing employee-employer or coworker lines. There's also a Quidditch team starting out (yes, yes, I can never resist Quidditch) but it's new and probably not very good, so washed out players and the like would be fun to add too.

For more info, visit the comm, or ask me questions. It's still pretty new but so far so good, so come and join if this is your kind of thing! :)

...is the number of "Congrats, Evy!" texts I have been receiving.

Um....????

C'mon guys I didn't win the Cup I just cheer for the team?

BUT OMG WE WON THE CUP WE WON THE CUP WE WON THE FRIGGIN' CUPPPPPPPPPPPP JAS;LKDFJA;KLSDFJA;KDSFJA;SDFJA;KSDFJA;KDSFJ;ALFD

(BOLLAND!!!!!!)

[Hermione in Yule Ball Blue]

[Hermione in Red]

Experimented with how these two Hermione pieces were done. Much trickier than I thought. >.>

[Sansa]

Meh. Not pleased with this. Her hair was a bitch and a half to sort out and wow, depressing image much? It's hard to find a Sansa picture that's iconic enough to make her stand out as clearly being Sansa without me having to tell you who she is. I did like how her lips turned out but that's probably just me.

[Margaery]

Hair's always fun to work with, but IDK if I like her lips as much here. There's always something!

( I quite like how she turned outCollapse )

More art that I've been doing lately. Still nowhere with my fic-writing mojo, although I signed up for a team at mating_games which means at least a 500-word thing every week \o/ buuuut that's about it, oops.

Ummm ArtRage has been great, but in terms of coloring I've been finding Photoshop easier to work with. I do love the way the oils work on ArtRage, but I'm not quite getting the hang of manipulating those. And I've always preferred to work with watercolors (like, you know, back when I was taking 6th grade art classes, lol) and the adjustment to digital is just kind of iffy for me.



( BellatrixCollapse )

( Viking WarriorCollapse )

And then yesterday I learned how to make vectors!

Well, not quite. Because you really kind of need Adobe Illustrator for that, and I just don't need it enough to justify a purchase. BUT there were a few Photoshop tutorials for how to make vector-like images, so I went and got my favorite image of Daenerys Targaryen from this season and did this:

( DanyCollapse )

The lines aren't super clean but I'm actually really happy about how this turned out in terms of shading/coloring and stuff. Still not quite sure how to manipulate the tools in Photoshop and ArtRage but this weekly practice is useful, I guess.



( Fleur DelacourCollapse )

So I'm not entirely sure what's happened the last few months, but doodling is coming easier than words to me lately. Oops? But I really do love the drawing tablet I got-- I feel like I've been using it more than my Kindle, even, but because most of my things are being posted directly to hh_sugarquill it occurs to me I should probably be posting some of them here too. For posterity or something. :D

Behold, my forays into fanart (from earliest to newest):

( Starry Starry HogwartsCollapse )

( MermaidCollapse )

( Ginny Sorted into SlytherinCollapse )

( Allons-y, Luna!Collapse )

( From Valley BroadCollapse )

( Mother of NarglesCollapse )

( Pansy in Haute CoutureCollapse )

As seen on coffee_n_cocoa's LJ:



Just simultaneously made me laugh and cry. I haven't gone past maybe 15% of the third book, so a lot of the specifics of S3 I don't really know yet, but I've basically been spoiled for all the major events so I'm well aware of the fates of most characters thus far.

( Spoilery talk, so cutting off hereCollapse )

Source

I don't necessarily agree with the all of the quotes listed in the source, but this actually crystalizes a couple of thoughts I've had lately.

There are always things that are out of your hands-- things you can't control, things you can't change. Worrying about them too much distracts you from working on the things you can control and the things you can change. I can't manage when the world goes to shit, but I can manage what I do about it.

Which, I realize now, isn't exactly about love, but whatever. XD Hope you all are enjoying today. <3

After posting this and reading what everyone had to say, trolling Tumblr for reviews, watching YouTube videos, reading Amazon reviews, I bit the bullet and ordered it. I figured, if I couldn't get a lot of use out of it, I could always just sell it on eBay -- it's not going to be at the same price, but at least I wouldn't lose all ~$65 on it.

It came in yesterday, because I chose local delivery (which was the same price as standard delivery, which would have taken 3-5 days), and I have to say, I kind of love it.

( First shotCollapse )

Drawing on the tablet while looking at the screen takes some getting used to, but I already work with a mouse in general and I don't think the difference is all that huge, actually. Hovering to do things hasn't been hard to do either. The only thing that's been annoying me is sometimes it'll switch from brush to the grabby little hand that moves your canvas around, but I figured out that might just be the little buttons on the stylus, so that's corrected itself for the most part. Definitely need to work on cleaner lines, though. And shadows. Urgh. How do you shadow?

I think what I like best is, in Photoshop and using layers, this is such an easy way to sketch something out, draw the line art in, and then move on immediately to coloring. I haven't tried Art Rage yet (the software it comes with), but I'm excited to because it looks like it works with coloring media (oil paints, for sure, but I hope there's watercolor) that's a lot more natural-looking than any other program does, so I'm gonna give that a go.

Sooooo I have been thinking, for Christmas I got a $100 Amazon gift card, and I could either spend that on Kindle books until it runs out, keep it in my account until I find something else later, orrrrr get a Wacom Bamboo Splash Pen Tablet for ~$65. It's supposed to be the "get started with art" model and is thus the cheapest of the product line.

I used to draw a bit before, but I don't really have much experience with digital art, except for that one time I tried coloring this. I'm not interested in entering fests as an artist, but I WOULD like to start drawing again, learn how to color in Photoshop, etc, at least as a hobby.

But is it a $65 hobby?

This'll be the 9th time in 10 years I've done this meme, so here we go:

( Year End MemeCollapse )

Title: Playing Favourites
Characters: Oliver Wood, Cho Chang
Word Count: ~2800
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: From the prompt: Cho's first patient as a Healer is Oliver Wood, fresh off a Quidditch injury. He wants to get back to the pitch as soon as possible. She wants to get him completely healed. They disagree. A lot.
Disclaimer: JKR owns the characters, and the plot is nessismore's. :)
Author's Notes: I ficced for interhouse_fest. kalisgirl did a great beta job on this one! <3 Any mistakes are due to my post-beta meddling.

( The first time Cho catches Oliver Wood wandering St Mungo's ward nowhere near his own, he at least has the grace to look embarrassed.Collapse )

FINISHED THE ACTUAL STORY TOO which, thank fuck. Not sure about how it ended but I am so glad the month is over.

*curls up and sleeps foreverrrrr*

Title: All Your Bullets Ricochet
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Chris Argent, implied Peter/Stiles
Rating: R
Word Count: ~3200
Summary: In which Chris Argent runs the BAU and Peter & Stiles are serial killers on the run.
Additional Notes: Because theaeblackthorn & I started talking about D/s dynamics and my mind went to Criminal Minds as you do. You don't need to know Criminal Minds for this (TBH I'm not even sure I knew of it enough <.< >.>) but you probably need to be okay with implied everything else.

"The unsub is only sixteen years old."

My highest scores:
Adventurous
Devoted
Conscientious

Huh.

Take the test here.

Daily Tracker

I got a little lucky with NaNo because I had more time than I anticipated in the first four days. The word count is great (I stopped somewhere around 23k today thinking that was it, then realized I could break the halfway mark if I did a slightly longer session so I went for it) and I'm more than happy with it, but I'm only just nearly done with the second part of a seven-story collection, so reaching 50k is probably not the end of it for me. Which. IDEK. *flail*

THE GOOD NEWS is I also set deadlines for finishing parts of the fic, and I'm on schedule for it, if not a bit ahead, so at least I'm still on track for finishing?

THE PROBLEM is I have absolutely nothing for part 3, so I'm probably going to get stalled out a bit there? I'll try to think up plot for it, because as much as possible I would like to write things in order, even though technically each part can stand on its own.

Definitely done writing for the day, though. XD How is everyone else doing? Non-NaNo peeps, are you sick of these updates yet? I'm not going to post too much too often (that's what Twitter is for, har har) so dun worry. XD

NaNo Tracker

Title: Countdown to the End of the World
Characters: Theodore Nott, Draco Malfoy, Mrs Zabini, Blaise Zabini
Rating: G
Word Count: 1266
Warning(s): Allusions to zombies?
Summary: "How do we get there?" Draco asks the afternoon he nearly gets bitten on a food run. He swears up a storm and throws a hissy fit but Theodore makes him wait the requisite five hours anyway. Rules are rules, Theodore reminds him, earning only a stream of colorful curses from Draco. He doesn't stop glaring at him for at least an hour after he is finally allowed back in.
Author's Note: Written (and currently hosted at) hp_zombiefest. This fic takes place in the same universe as the fics I wrote last time, Dead Men Walking and The Quibbler's Guide to the Rising, though you don't need to read either to follow this one.

( Countdown )

you're welcome.

ps i guess you can say this is nsfw but what are you doing checking LJ at work huh? <.< >.>

So, after nearly a decade at this site, LJ finally does something that makes me actually rage. No popcorn and laughing as the masses storm to news posts complaining, this time I'm actually worried.

A while back I was invited to help out with BETA testing new LJ services (I got this invite via lj_releases).

They have just announced BETA testing of a new friendslist.

LJ is planning on redoing everyone's friendslists in the style of the new comment page and update page. They want to copy tumblr and make your friendslist into a dashboard-like system page (infinite scrolling and all). It's also been renamed to "feed" (this I don't mind too much, though). In fact the whole dashboard idea with infinite scrolling wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that everyone will be locked to one specific layout. The system style comment pages are bad enough, but now I'll have to strain my eyes reading my flist? That defeats the purpose of this entire site. The font, use of whitespace, oversized boxes and UI elements ... all contribute to making the page difficult to read, on a site where all you do is read. Aaaah. Even just the possibility of adjusting the font (style and size) would make this suggestion easier to swallow, but it's still not something I'd want for my journal. It would not improve my LJ experience in any way (in fact it would most likely make my daily LJ activities more time consuming).

Now, I wasn't able to make the BETA page display my own friendslist, so I apologise to the random users who are featured in the screenshot, but to give everyone an idea, the below image shows you what your friendslist probably will look like in a couple of months.


(Click for big)

[A couple of more screenshots]
I never switched over from Dystopia, so that adds to the weirdness. You're going to have to picture this with the standard LiveJournal drop down navigation + no blue sidebar to the left. Click the screenshots for bigger versions.

Top of page with links to journal, archive, profile


Example of text heavy post as displayed on friendslist


New buttons to the right replace the navigation strip. One tab for filters


One tab for Archive/Calendar, you can filter your feed to display posts from one specific date. These buttons follow along as you scroll down the page (infinite scrolling).



All friendslists will look the same.

Snippet from the locked post at lj_releases:

The friends page has been redesigned as a system page for all users, and is now available for Beta testers. There is a link at the top of your friends page allowing you to switch between the new and old versions, and will later go into public beta testing. You can switch back and forth between both versions throughout beta testing.

PUBLIC POST AT lj_releases ABOUT THE NEW FRIENDSLIST: http://lj-releases.livejournal.com/79480.html.

You can also see the proposed changes for yourself by enabling the BETA on your own journal (instructions from ruljautonews):

It's trivially easy to test beta features.
1) Go to lj_ru_beta and request to join.
2) Wait to get confirmation that you've been accepted into the community (this could take a few hours.)
3) Go to this page and choose Go To under Beta.
4) That's it, you're now testing the beta release. All site-scheme pages should now display a big "BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA" in yellow letters across the top.
5) You could make comments in the lj_ru_beta post, but if you do please keep this in mind: the majority of commenters there don't speak English and if they do it's not their primary language. Machine translation of Russian is lousy. "My hovercraft is full of eels" lousy. While you can engage in basic dialogue and get a feel for what the other person is saying, don't get too hung up on anyone's phrasing.

You can easily switch back to the old version.

Make sure you let LJ know what you think of these proposed changes, I can't be the only one who thinks this is a horrible idea.

ETA: It's nice to see that I'm not the only one worried about the proposed changes, but please direct your feedback through the proper channels. This is a private journal, I have no affiliation with LJ. Please also be respectful when addressing the LJ staff. They are just doing their jobs. Thanks!

ETA2: Russian news post about the BETA test: http://lj-ru-beta.livejournal.com/7013.html

ETA3: Added more screenshots.

ETA4: Additional info at ruljautonews: http://ruljautonews.livejournal.com/27964.html

ETA5: An update on the new site scheme.

ETA6: Public beta has now been announced. Official announcement.

ETA7 (really?): RUSSIAN NEWS POSTS CONFIRM PAGINATION AND ABILITY TO CUSTOMIZE FONT AND BACKGROUND IN THE FUTURE, ruljautonews HAS MORE: http://ruljautonews.livejournal.com/28207.html

• Signed up for Nano! I'm not entirely sure why, what with [redacted] happening in November and not having plot and time and all of that, but. I signed up. Right now I think I'm doing Teen Wolf which, EL OH EL, but theaeblackthorn gave me plot that I might be able to play with. WE WILL SEE I will try to spend this weekend plotting it out.
  
  The PLAN for Nano:
  [TL;DR]- 2-hour writing blocks on Monday evening (3000-word goal) -- 12000 max
  - 4-hour writing blocks on Wednesday (6000-word goal) -- 24000 max
  - 1.5-hour writing blocks weekday mornings (2250-word goal) -- 27000 if 3x a week, 45000 if 5x, not counting Thanksgiving
  - at least 2 4-hour blocks on weekends (min 6000-word goal) -- 18000 not counting Thanksgiving
  
  Not entirely sure I'll be able to pull off the daily morning thing and the last time I did the 4-hour writing blocks I came up with a little under 10k SO THIS MIGHT JUST WORK. The problem is, and has always been, plotting. Also focus. I'll honestly need to have legit plot before November though. What do 50k words look like plot-wise? Seriously, this is my problem.
  
  
• Getting a new laptop. Been sitting on this decision for the last year, but I bought my Mac in 2007 and have never updated its OS, which is a problem because I'm four behind and it's hard to install new software now because, you know, BEHIND. <.< >.> I was going to update it, but it turns out it can go as high as the OS Lion, but not the Mountain Lion (which is newer).
  
  The laptop itself is still working, it is, but the memory's catching up to it, I think, and I'd much rather replace it now and move my files over before, you know, having the hard drive crash and fail and I end up losing everything.
  
  But it's still in good working condition at 5 years, I am impressed, so it's not even a question that I'm sticking with Apple. Before I had my Mac I had a shitty Acer laptop that died within 2 years. In that time I have had to take it to random service places and paid out of pocket for things to get fixed. Meanwhile Apple customer service has never done me wrong -- it faltered a few days after my warranty expired and they serviced it for free. I dropped sparkling water in it and fried it WAY past the warranty expiration AND THEY SERVICED IT FOR FREE (IT WOULD HAVE BEEN $850) BECAUSE I ADMITTED IT WAS MY FAULT. Like. What even.
  
  I'm thinking it's just time, too. EXCITED. :D
  
  
• Considering getting this too. I don't tend to be frivolous but ngl bags are kind of a weakness. D: Also I travel a lot and it'd be nice to have a purse that my laptop can easily slot out of when I'm going through security and just in general too, IDK look it looks professional and not a diaper bag I love my Vera Bradley messenger bag but I wouldn't have bought it if a friend hadn't given it to me because diaper bags idk.
  
  
• HOCKEY. Okay maybe not really but HOCKEY. IS. HAPPENING. Going to a charity game this Friday. The 2010 Blackhawks that I like are playing and fasjf;asjfkasl;dflaksj yes I just want to see some goddamn hockey already. I should be going to AHL games but IDK, never get around to looking at ticket prices and stuff. I have a friend who works for the Wolves and can get me free tickets but it's a matter of waiting on her too, because the last time we tried to do that she texted me two days before the game I'd wanted. :|
  
  
• Potted Potter. It is showing in Chicago and I am watching it this November AND I CANNOT WAIT. It's been a long time since I was in a theater urgh. Also considering Kinky Boots because my friend said it was fun and Groupon has 35% off for it IDK. Probably not though already spending so much monies. :|

Sorry, this is just random rambling because I felt the need to update. :|

I don't often do flist cuts (I feel like this is the first in... three, four years? PROBABLY EIGHT ACTUALLY, lol, I am a hoarder okay <.< >.>), but I just did a little flist trimming. Took out deleted LJs (all of the strikethroughs are making me so sad :(), comms I don't really follow anymore (Torchwood ILU, but lbr you were never really one of my fandoms :\), and people who have unfriended me and whose journals are primarily flocked (IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE, BUT IT'S OVER NOW, IT MUST HAVE BEEN GOOD, BUT I LOST IT SOMEHOWWWWWW).

Technically, none of you should be concerned, and I wasn't going to make this post at all, but it occurs to me that if I accidentally cut someone I shouldn't have (which is likely, I did have 13 pages to go through :|) they might end up thinking it's about something it isn't about, so here's the explanation for what's going on.

So if you're reading this and you've been unfriended by mistake, let me know and I'll add you back. Also, SORRY, DID NOT MEAN IT I PROMISE. <3

Comments are screened.

MACHEIST

FUCK. YES. THEY HAVE SCRIVENER AND EVERNOTE PREMIUM. THOSE TWO ALONE ARE WORTH $29.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Convinced my family to try deep dish at least once in Chicago

 

Didn't think of it until we were at the airport

 

And only bc I saw Uno was here

 

Deductions for the host/tour guide fail, points for effort?

Title: we are not shining stars
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Susan Bones, Ernie Macmillan, Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbott, Megan Jones, Justin Finch-Fletchley
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2344
Summary: This was not how their last year at Hogwarts was supposed to go.
Additional Notes: Title taken from fun.'s Carry On, which could be a Hufflepuff anthem. Thanks go to ccharlotte for letting me email her bits and pieces of this before this was done, intrepidy for the beta, and Hufflepuffs for generally being brilliant. Originally written for hogwarts_houses and posted here.

( It is only the first week of the new term and Susan thinks they must have been right, must have known what was going to happen. Dumbledore is dead and Hogwarts, she hears, is surrounded by Death Eaters and Dementors. )

---

Title: Lady Luck
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Cormac McLaggen, Katie Bell, various others
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2304
Summary: His heart's in the right place. It's just his execution that leaves a lot to be desired.
Additional Notes: Do you ever get those days when you sit down to write one story and something else pops out? Yeah, that was this. Huge thanks to ccharlotte, always, and thegrownupthing for the beta. Thanks to iulia_linnea for giving me an outlet to explore my Cormac feels and, of course, for organizing one of my favorite fests ever. Originally written for hogwarts_houses and posted here.

( Cormac is five the first time a girl clocks him in the head. )

I'm beginning to understand the urge to monologue.

Sometimes (okay, usually) I feel so lazy that any kind of movement feels like so much effort.

 

But other days I feel like I can be Katniss.

Title: the start is the hardest part
Pairing: Zacharias/Pansy
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Word Count: ~14,000
Summary: "In case you were wondering," she says once they're both settled at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around warm mugs of tea, "I haven't got any designs on your family name."

"Didn't think you did, but glad to hear it all the same."

"I'd rather be destitute and dishonorable than birth potential Hufflepuffs."
Notes:Written for het_bigbang. Beta'd by the lovely y3llowdaisi3s and kalisgirl.

( the start is the hardest part )

Living on the edge

Things I tried last night:
- homemade absinthe
- a Cuban cigar
- standing on the questionably stable wooden floor of our balcony for longer than a minute

Possibly the last part was what made me the most nervous.

Remember when our watch parties just had themed cupcakes?

On the actual Opening Ceremony

It needed more TARDIS.

Remember when Chicago bid for the 2016 Olympics?

Neither do I but I needed to connect this last bit somehow.


Slightly Insulting Chicago Posters

I want this poster in my life. Unfortunately they're not selling it yet.

I also want the Loop one, since I work in the Loop and tend to be in the area a lot. If you do want to get an idea about what the neighborhoods are like in this city, check out the Tumblr because holy ACCURATE, Batman.

Books are very patient objects. We buy them, and then they wait for us to read them. Days, months, even years. That’s okay for books, but not for new authors. If people don’t read them, the authors never make it to a second book.

Posted this on Tumblr as well but asjfk;jaskldfjal;skfjaslfj I WANT. Unfortunately this was printed in a language I couldn't read, so even if I COULD buy it, it'd remain (ironically) unread.

I just. I can't.

I.

CAN'T.

Just finished watching In Time. As a movie it was a great big meh--the premise was interesting only for the first few minutes, and then you start substituting time for money, the puns get old fast, and yeah, the plot barely holds itself together.

But I'll be damned if it wasn't an incredibly good-looking movie.

Forget Justin Timberlake, Olivia Wilde, and Amanda Seyfried (who are all pretty but obvs you expect them to be as at least Timberlake and Seyfried are the stars of the movie). Check out the ~Timekeepers, who look to me like a grown-up casting for Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, and Draco Malfoy (a little bit):



The first five minutes also featured Matt Bomer, and while I'm no White Collar fan, I can certainly appreciate him:



And then, of course, Alex Pettyfer who unrelatedly is apparently gonna be in that male stripper movie AWESOME, my sometimes-headcast for Zacharias Smith:



So basically I don't think it had much by way of anything else, but the eye candy was very much appreciated.

capitolreaping

Happy Hunger Games

And may the odds be ever in your favor.

BAM. Who's got two thumbs and is District Four's first member? :D FINNICK I'M COMING FOR YOU.

It's completely new but it sounds pretty promising, based on the profile info, because it's not just about sorting or anything-- of all the fandoms, I'd say THG is probably one that's ridiculously appropriate for a landcomm. There will be "games" that'll have one volunteer and one drawn tribute from each district competing. It'll operate like a LIMS thing, and the Sorting is different because it plays on the whole idea that the Capitol is in control all the time. They make the final decisions but District mayors can try to bribe them with coin earned from activities. IDK IT JUST SOUNDS SUPER INTERESTING OKAY?

But there aren't a lot of people yet, so it's not quite where it could be for the concept to work, I don't think. So you should consider joining (and tell them I sent you, there's no ~referral program yet but there could be!) and sign right up especially if you're into The Hunger Games.

SO. As previously stated, tried to do Peeta's cheese buns yesterday. Actually I also tried my hand at dip-able bread rolls... only I haven't quite perfected the art of working with yeast and so it never activated, so the bread didn't rise, so instead of puffy bread rolls I have itty bitty dense ones. Which is a pity, because the recipe was SO GOOD and the bread tastes really good, but it's just a little tough and small and not at all dinner roll-y. This also makes me hesitant about trying to do the District 11 bread because, well, that'll need to rise twice too.



But anyway. I did the cheese buns yesterday, and it was SUPER EASY TO DO. I highly recommend it. I think the biggest problem I had was that the dough didn't really hold all that much, and then it got sticky as I was trying to set it up later, but I just floured up my hands and that made it easier to handle. I wish our broiler worked so I could have added the cheese on top too but I do think it's good as it is.

One thing I wish I'd changed was the glaze-- it was a LOT saltier than I would have liked, so I think next time I'll either cut back on the amounts of garlic powder, Old Bay, and salt that I added, or not glaze it four times which I thought I should do because it looked too pale otherwise. :| After letting the buns sit for a night, though, the saltiness seems to have gone.

It did also make for a lot of salty buns jokes last night, so that worked out. :|

Also, madlybewildered and acidpop25 told me fondant can be bought ready-made, so I'm kind of looking forward to playing with it sometime soon. I'm not sure how much I trust my fondant sculpting skills because these things always look a lot easier on video but hey, worth a try. :P

Someone alerted me to the existence of these series of videos where a group of girls try to recreate the food in The Hunger Games, and I am DETERMINED to make Peeta's Cheese Buns for Saturday when we do our watch party for the Hawks. DETERMINED. Also then I can say I've eaten Peeta's cheese buns because I am twelve years old and very easily amused.

Then I want to try doing the District 11 bread because the ingredients for that look superawesome: poppy seeds, oatmeal, milk, sugar, honey, flax seeds, sunflower seeds... WANT.

I was also talking to someone about food from Game of Thrones and there's a blog/LJ/SOMETHING out there that has recipes from the book too, but those sound like they're better for autumn cooking anyway, and I want to try those too.

Fandom + Food = TRUE LOVE FOREVERRRRRRRR

ETA: My coworker just gave me the bestest idea ever: A Capitol-themed Halloween party!

Things wot I want to try with it:

Lunch with Cinna
Cupcakes on Fire - trolololol how the fuck do I make fondant?
Goose liver and puffy bread
Pasta in Green Sauce
Capitol pumpkin soup
This or this version of the lamb stew with dried plums dish.

Well. Maybe not all at once. I definitely want to do the cupcakes, the pasta, the goose liver and puffy bread, but it probably should be more cocktail-y if it's a Halloween party and not as much meal-y. There's gotta be more colored drinks and shit too. ALSO. Capitol Couture, that'll be FUN. If people don't want to dress up like Effie Trinket we can tell people to dress up in suits and slick back their hair and then we'll hand out a cutout of Seneca Crane's beard SO THERE.

Only just realized, while finally watching Thor at musicksempire's, that Magneto and Loki are played by different actors. All this time I thought they were both Michael Fassbender, and that it was cool he played both. I DON'T KNOW OKAY. D:

Someone to mash this up with The Hunger Games:



HE HASN'T CHANGED ROLES IN IDK HOW MANY YEARS LOL.