Harpies Bizarre

à snapinou. J'espère que tu as passé une bonne journée

I was just doing tech support over the phone to my parents, trying to splain about gmails spam filters being different to windows mail filters...

And Dad said: you're wonderful. You're stroppy and sneering but wonderful.

Hee, I am Snape.

It's a weekend of tidying and throwing things away, and I'm going to buy myself a book reader just because.

Title: In Vitro
Characters: Harry, Kingsley, Severus . . . after a fashion
Word Count: 100x6
Rating: PG
Warnings: Unexplained plot, vaguely creepy
Disclaimer: Not mine. They belong to JKR.
A/N: Originally intended for snarry100 but it got weird. Too weird.

( In Vitro )

...my internet connection was extremely wonky. I couldn't get onto lj at all and each time I managed to log in to gmail or any of the archives, the connection timed out on me again : ((((
It made me realise once more how much I love my flist and our little corner of fandom. So, here are a some things in fandom that make me happy today:

1. There's a new Lucius pic.



Isn't he dishy? (Found via alanrickman)

2. A couple of lovely Snucius ficlets/drabbles:
Propositioned by alisanne
Serenity by whitecotton
Watching by torina_archelda.

3. Thanks to the sshg_awards, I'm finally reading some of the stories that have been on my ever-growing reading list for a while and discovered grangerous's Phoenix Song. I love this story. It's well written, the plot is intriguing and the characterisations are really good, too. It stays very close to canon and still manages to tell a different and very compelling story. In the best of ways, this story reminds me of some of my favourites, written before DH – those fics that drew me to sshg in the first place.

4. There's a sequel called Phoenix Tears!

*wanders off to read said sequel*

Google Waves is something that looks very interesting, it is, however, still in its beta stage.
It is complex and will need some time to figure out. It does look like fun though, and I think that fandom will find many creative ways to use what is offered. Syndicated lj entries can be included in waves, from what I've gathered, but I didn't have time yet to look closely at this yet.

You need a google account to use the waves.

So, if you want it, first come, first serve.

Six
Five
Four
Three
Two
One

It's Friday morning here in Australia, and I'm reccing this essay:

http://randomneses.livejournal.com/479704.html

It's about the Snape/Lily pairing, and why there's so much Lily-bashing (apparently) that goes on in the Snapefen camp. I don't entirely agree with it, but it's thought-provoking,to say the least.

I look forward to hearing what other members think!

Alison

or since when does a kiss equate to sexual violence?

Adam Lambert has basically said he got carried away at this year's American Music Awards, but that if people were offended, that's because they're bigots. 

Consider these quotes:  "I admit I did get carried away, but I don't see anything wrong with it." . . . "If it had been a female pop performer doing the moves that were on the stage, I don't think there'd be nearly as much of an outrage at all.  I think it's because I'm a gay male."

GLAAD has complained that any criticism of Lambert reinforces a double standard against gays, and uses as an example the kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, which was controversial, but was also replayed,  And, honestly, I'd be sympathetic to that argument except for two things:  The MTV awards were on cable, specifically MTV, which is not exactly known as sedate.  But the bigger issue for me is that Lambert did not just kiss a guy on stage.  That would be entirely analogous and I suspect that, while some people would have complained, there would not be much of an uproar.

No, the issue is that, among other things, Lambert dressed his backup dancers in BDSM-like gear and forcibly pushed the head of another performer into his crotch and rubbed it in his crotch (although as I understand it, people on the west coast did not see that -- it was edited out).  It is really more analogous to the Timberlake-Jackson Super Bowl furor, when Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's clothing.  And don't tell me that did not cause an uproar.  Of course, I must confess that I have often disagreed with people about the Timberlake-Jackson issue.  The two of them claimed it was just a wardrobe malfunction, and that Timberlake's ripping her clothes off was just supposed to reveal a lacy red bra, rather than her bare breast.  But my question was and remains:  WHY did they think it OK to be showing for titillation and supposed entertainment a white man ripping the clothing off a black woman to leave her in underwear?

The bottom line is that both Lambert's shoving a man's face into his crotch and rubbing it around, and Timberlake's ripping off Jackson's clothing were mimed acts of sexual violence, played out before children on major TV networks.  Well, so maybe Lambert's wasn't was mimed; apparently he was getting some stimulation there.  I cannot see why Lambert thinks that is OK.  I cannot see why GLAAD thinks that is OK.  And I am horrified that Lambert and GLAAD are perpetrating the stereotype of gays as people who equate sexual violence with a kiss.

To all my dear friends celebrating Thanksgiving I hope you have a wonderful holiday!



"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you', that would suffice." ~Eckhart von Hochheim

Helluva day to post a rec, at least for folks this side of the pond, but here it is nonetheless.

Title: The Guardian
Author: madambackslash
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack Harkness, John Hart, Gray, Ianto Jones, Rhiannon Davies, Mica Davies, OCs
Spoilers: Through CoE
Summary: The Jones family has lived in Cardiff for a very long time...
Why you should read it: This tale starts in 27 CE with a very young witness to a horrific event, a witness who proceeds to give that event a meaning that grows through time and then persists well beyond. To say more would spoil it, but it's beautiful and sad and touching and I expect it's a story I'll revisit more than once. Have Kleenex handy when you read.

First, the feast preparations are underway!

• The turkey, all 21 # of him, are brining happily in the cooler outside. It was so freshly... uh... processed it needed a thorough rinsing, then it's soaked overnight in salty ice water. In the morning, I'll push rosemary under the skin, and stuff it loosely with lemon rinds and onions just for flavour. The stuffing gets baked seperately, which makes it lighter. and the bird cooks faster and more evenly.
• For classic stuffing I use Pepperidge Farm brand and enhance it with sauted onion, celery, turkey stock, butter. Maybe mushrooms. And cracked green peppercorns.
• For a green veggie: Roasted brussel sprouts
• My Irish housemate makes divine mashed potatoes to go with my awesome gravy.
• Houseguest from NC is making baked Delicata squash, low-sugar apple pie and cranberry-apricot sauce.
• We also have pumpkin ice cream to embellish that pie.

And now, for some gratitude.
I am incredibly grateful for my warm and beautiful home, a place people want to be. I am blessed with wonderful friends, nearby and all over (**hugs you!**).  I have wonderful animal companions whom I adore. I am grateful for the time I have had away from work, to recover , to look ahead, to plan and prepare for much-needed change. Many blessings come to me from the amazing passion and creativity of my friends and colleagues. I love all the inspiration, entertainment, amusement, motivation, stimulation and challenge your art, writing, music and healing work brings into my life.I am grateful for my parents and grandparents, (all deceased) from whom I received so many gifts. I treasure the intellect, imagination, talent and passion you gave to me. I love the land I walk on, the food that grows in her, the river that waters us, the trees, flowers, vines, grasses, berries, briars, wild irises, underwater grasses that make this world so soft and green and beautiful. I cherish the animals I love with in these wild woods, the deer, possum, fox, racoons, chipmonks, squirrels, weasels, otters and mice. I am in awe of the birds, from the enormous bald eagles to the tiny hummingbirds, the herons, ducks, geese, cormorants, coots, grebes, grackles, crows, vultures, osprey, seagulls, warblers thrushes and wrens, I love you all. Even the crawly and flying things... for every nasty bloodsucking mosquito there is a Luna moth or swallowtail butterfly, an irridescent beetle, a colorful caterpiller, a dazzling dragonfly. Even the spiders are awesome.

May you all have a day filled with blessings.

I thought I'd share my recipe for sweet potatoes with everyone. They are always a favorite at our table.

( Apple Pecan Sweet Potatoes )

I'm dropping out of my own fest, how pathetic is that?
Well, not entirely, I have a short fic finished which I'll post.
But the longer fic... there is no way that I could finish that without rushing it. I don't want to rush stories any more. It gave me a lot of trouble, made me all insecure (there's that movie that seemed to be similar in plot, but isn't, really), then I ran into a plot hole, one minor thing that stopped the thing from getting to a logical conclusion... and now I have all that, and now the time has passed.

Eek. I really don't know where this year went. I think my story has the potential to be decent, but not when I rush it. So I'll leave it, and hope to finish it, twist it, tweak it until it is how I want it.
Did I mention that I hate posting WIPs? This one will only be posted, if ever, when finished.
And before that, I'll finish my WIP of doom, which has been dormant long enough.
Sigh...

But: the Big Bang doesn't really need my entries, there are great entries coming our way, and wonderful art. So I'll most likely drop out of my photomaniping, too.

Title: Justifying the Wolf, III
Challenges: random Wikipedia article snape100 (Meryatum), politics lupin100
Word Count: 100
Note: this is part of the conclusion to the de-aged Snape plot begun a couple of weeks ago. He is in his twenties and has regained most of his memories.


Audrey Prince led them to a spacious parlor. She vanished a stack of political flyers from the table, took a seat beneath an old lithograph of the statue of Meryatum at Abu Simbel, and tapped her cane for tea.

Severus accepted a steaming cup of tea. "You're looking well, Gran."

"As are you," said Madam Prince. "Considerably older than when you left for school, but well."

"It came on - gradually," said Remus. He paused. "Strong memories triggered growth. Today - "

"I know what happened today." Her gaze was unreadable. "Perhaps you'd care to tell me what happens next?"

Title: Shame
Author: janus
Characters: Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall
Rating: G
Challenge: Written for snape100's prompt #309: "Honi soit qui mal y pense" "Let him who thinks ill there be shamed."
Word Count: 200
Warnings: None

"Don't call me Coward!" he had cried, propelling fury, pain and desperation from him with the explosive power of sheer feeling required for a Patronus.

After he had betrayed his soul, his honour and any fine feeling for himself he had ever wanted to possess, this was the one thing he had left: He was not a coward.

At breakfast he read The Daily Prophet, but also The Times to gage Wizarding effects on the Muggle world. The standard caught his eye, and he deciphered its words of old French via Latin. "Let him who thinks ill there be shamed."

That would teach them, if they read it. He remembered the garter story from his first, Muggle school. McGonagall ought to be ashamed of thinking poorly of him after everything she should have seen and deduced.

But he thought ill of himself also, he realised. So much he had done sickened him. If he heeded the motto, he could be ashamed for judging himself so. If he did not heed it, he could condemn himself without shame. He lifted the corners of his mouth bitterly, appreciating the irony.

He vanished the newspaper and turned back to far more damning concerns.

The spouse and I are almost done getting ready (& packing all my extra meds) for the long drive North to our Thanksgiving gathering. Gluten-free noms here we come! ;)

We'll only have intermittent net access for a week, so a Happy (early) Turkey day to all! *sends warm wishes and blessings to my flist*

Title: Opposites Attract
Author: alisanne
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Challenge: Written for snape100's prompt #309: Wikipedia redux I got this. *eyeroll*
Word Count: 100
Warnings: None that I am aware of.
Beta: sevfan
Disclaimer: The characters contained herein are not mine. No money is being made from this fiction, which is presented for entertainment purposes only.

Opposites Attract

The New York Times today has an article on how both sides of the political spectrum are challenging the increasing federalization of criminal law.  It's an interesting read.  But the bizarre thing about it is that it describes a revolt in legal circles against federalizing criminal law, traditionally the province of the states; yet the comments picked as Editor's Selections all rail against state drug laws.  It makes me wonder if their own editors read the story.  And it kind of confirms my increasing lack of respect for the editors of the NYT, given their sympathy for those irrelevantly whining in the comments that it was unfair they went to jail for state drug charges or California's three strikes state law (the problem with which -- and there most certainly is one -- is that is inappropriately applied).  I mean, if they are going to whine, at least make it relevant to the topic of the article.

The whiny sense of over-entitlement in the comments reminds me of a guy who called my office the other day and said he was going to be all responsible now and clean up a warrant for an old drug charge (we're getting that a lot these days, and what it really means is he can't get a job now because the warrant turned up in a background check).  When I told him that was no problem:  he just either needed to come back to enter a plea and pay the fine, come back to contest the charge, or get a lawyer to do one of those for him, his response was to scream obscenities at me about how the state had an obligation to take care of it for him.  He wanted me to pay his mileage to drive to court.   The fact that I was agreeing not to charge the jerk with criminal failure to appear charges apparently escaped him. 

Then there was the guy who drove through the state doing drugs and, when he got picked up, wanted us to transfer his case to an adjoining state, because it "wasn't fair that I have to drive all this way to come to court."  Anyway...

The other somewhat strange thing about the article is its claim that nobody on the "right" has complained about this before now.  Yet, I remember clearly in the years before his death, Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- constantly criticized for being too far to the right -- repeatedly warned in speeches that Congress was exceeding its grasp -- because it was criminalizing conduct that had never been illegal; because it was increasing the power of the federal government and usurping the ability of states to prosecute (a favorite topic of mine, as you know); and because it was increasing the complexity and breadth of the federal criminal laws without any concurrent increase in budgets for the federal district courts.  As a result, putting aside the philosophical issues, the federal courts are overburdened and simply do not have the resources needed to handle the increase in caseload.  And I clearly recall contemptuous dismissals of Rehnquist from the NYT and others when he gave those warnings.

Title: Justifying the Wolf, I
Challenges: random Wikipedia article snape100 (Slawecin, Lower Silesian Voivodeship), politics lupin100
Word Count: 100
Note: this is part of the conclusion to the de-aged Snape plot begun a couple of weeks ago. He is in his twenties and has regained most of his memories.


A door opened while Severus named the politicians whose photographs adorned the walls. The Princes had a long history of involvement in politics, and Remus was not surprised to learn that Eileen Prince had met her husband during work on a campaign to deal with an infestation of bundimuns in Muggle buildings in an obscure Eastern European village.

"Severus?" A tall woman gripped an ornately carved cane. "My goodness. The Black girls owled me with the news."

"Gran." Severus' fingers dug into Remus' palm. "This is Remus Lupin. My - "

"We'll discuss this over tea," said Audrey Prince.

... so I am existing mostly on facebook. These days most people have facebooks, and so - having seen this on a friend's wall there, 'm posting it here as well ...

'On Friday, Facebook will start using your photos in ads that will appear on the profile page of your contacts. It's legal and is mentioned in the fine print when you create your account. If you want to prevent this from happening, do the following: Settings, Privacy Settings, News Feed and Wall. Then...Facebook Ads, choose "No one" and save changes.'

...

Title: Enthralled
Challenge # 309: "Wikipedia, Redux!
Author: Severed Lies

Word Count: 100

Rating: G

Characters: Severus Snape, Charity Burbage
Warnings: None
A/N: Clark's Law is an adage that reads: “Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.”


“So you have stated that blasted 'Law' repeatedly, but I assure you, it is distinguishable and punishable.”

Severus swept through the classroom, book in hand. He turned once, sketched a slight bow, then glided out the door into the dark corridor.

Charity repressed a laugh until she was certain Severus had descended at least two levels. He was so determined to prove that her favorite author was a hack that he forgot the bottle of red ink he came to borrow. She disagreed with him whole-heartedly about Elsworth Haynes, however.

Severus missed dinner that evening, enthralled with Imperial Earth.