Title: Unasked
Author:synn
Rating: G/PG
Pairing: Snape/Bill, former snape/harry
word count: 100
Challenge/prompt: 310, the unwritten pairing
Warnings: none
Summary: In which harry realizes assumptions aren't always correct, and that maybe Severus let him go, too.

(Remember: drabble posts now appear on livejournal and insanejournal and dreamwidth)

Challenge #310: "The Unwritten Pairing" This week's challenge might be a bit of a stretch in that you're being asked to write a drabble focusing on Snape paired romantically and/or sexually (but not necessarily graphically) with a character with whom you've never paired him before. (Note: for the fight-to-the-death OTP folks in the community, feel free to tell your drabble from the perspective of the "delusional" imagination of the other party. *g*)

tags: challenges

I've been pretty conflicted about posting my wishlist; on one hand its something of a fandom/lj/lj-clones tradition, and although many people try to grant wishes, its not a required or expected part of making the list.  On the other hand, im really ashamed that I screwed up with Holiday wishes last year.   I don't even remember who I promised to send stuff too last year (can't look back at my emails because there was a computer mishap) I could explain about all our medical and financial and family crisises but I don't want to focus on the negative and I doubt you'd enjoy reading it either.
If I promised you something last year, please let me know, and I'll try to make it right this year.
( Read more... )

tags: wishlist

Damn Swap fic--every time I think I'm making progress, I get stuck. *kicks fic*

...errr. Anyone enjoying the holiday weekend enough to want to do some beta work for me? You need a break from eggnog and Christmas shopping, riiight? *puppy dog eyes*

These are the things wot I might need a teensy bit of help with:

1. a Kirk/Spock
2. a Remus/Sirius
3. a Sheldon/Leonard

Umm, so these are all for fests, except #3, so I can't give tons of details, but they're like, not at all scary, really. Nothing terribly squicky or sad or scary or anything. I can e-mail you details if you wants them.

Also, there is something that I am midway through writing (well. Not midway. but started, at least) and could use some cheerleading help on. If anyone is extra specially helpful, and wants to have capslocky chat conversations with me. Because capslock is love, and you know, I just need someone to help me focus on ficcage instead of pumpkin cheesecake.

Pleeeeeease? I will <3 you forever!

mood: crazy tags: beta, help me i love you, pumpkin cheesecake, where is my coffee?

One of the discoveries I’ve made since becoming ill is that I’m strongly motivated by duty. My responsibilities to the muslings, for instance, kept me slogging through the days even when I was at my worst and would just as soon have not kept waking up in the mornings. Even now that I’m feeling somewhat better, my energy is still limited enough that I can’t do everything I used to, and what that means in practice is that I usually end up doing only the things I “have to” - where “have to” equals work and stuff for the muslings, but not reading and writing for fun. I’ve been leery of making any fandom commitments for fear of not being able to carry them off, but possibly a commitment is just what I need.

So... if any of you want to tell me why I indulged my not-so-secret love for geeky t-shirts by wearing the one shown in this icon while cooking for Thanksgiving yesterday, I will at least try to write something for you. (Or the first one or two of you, if this is more popular than I expect. No promises on the timetable, though I’d like to put the last two evenings of the holiday weekend to good use!)

ETA: A couple of people here and on LJ have already recognized tryptophan, an amino acid often blamed (not necessarily correctly) for making people sleepy after large Thanksgiving meals. If you didn't recognize the molecule or are arriving later and would still like to request a story you're welcome to, though I'm not making any promises about getting to later prompts.

That's right! In six days, on December second, I, Cluegirl, shall spontaneously become The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Line forms to the right, gratuities are appreciated.) For those hoopy froods who don't speak Hitchiker, I'll be turning 42.

I expect it to be nothing at all like being 41 has been, but just in case, I've liquidated my assets, put everything into canned goods and shotgun ammunition, and have stapled my towel firmly to my elbow. With that, and my wand in my back pocket, I expect I'll be ready for anything. Except possibly zombies. Zombies take a little more preparation.

As for what I want for my birthday?
No frelling idea.

I mean, there are the old standards, of course; I always get a bit giddy at just the notion that someone might illustrate one of my stories, or conversely, might write a story for one of my drawings. Collaboration is highly squee-some in my little world, y'see, and I swear that one day SOMEONE will illustrate the mirror scene from Pink Slip, and I shall expire of Happy on the spot.

I could wish for world peace and the brotherhood of man, but I've noticed how shittily brothers treat each other, and as we all know, the last time the matrix was configured for world peace, it crashed and we lost whole crops to the logic failure. So that's out.

But reining things back into the realm of the distantly plausible, I'd say I want for more or less nothing of note. I want to keep rolling on Tempus Fugitive. I want my cats and my snakes to stay healthy in the coming year. I want the resources to close up the hole in my house properly, and to begin the next major set of repairs (Hopefully before the porch falls entirely OFF Mandala House, thanks!)

And most importantly, I want my friends who are in reach to join me for a Solstice party on December 19th, to celebrate both my birthday, and the Sun King's in one swat. The date is positive; December 19th. Save it, and if you can possibly make it to Troy, NY, do consider coming! And don't worry if you're not of the witchy persuasion -- I plan no heresy, just cake and shenanigans.

mood: Sated music: She Moved Through the Fair -- Enter the Haggis

So, since I've moved, I go to work by train, which is good as it gives me time for reading, etc.

Except that tonight, I managed to get onto the wrong train, and arrived at the storage station. *facepalm* Thankfully, the train driver was very helpful, and managed to find a colleague that went back to Lyon and could leave me at the station before the last train. :D

---

This entry was originally posted at http://snakeling.dreamwidth.org/157195.html [ comments]. You can reply there using OpenID.

mood: stupid tags: misc:rl

A note of explanation: Dominus is a boy scout. As such, he has the requisite Scouting addiction to Corned Beef Hash. Anywhere we go to eat, if it's got hash on the menu, I immediately know what my husband will be ordering, no matter what else they may serve. Seriously, he loves the stuff so much that from time to time, he'll scratch the hash itch with tinned. Clearly, this was a situation I could not abide. I mean, if you're gonna feed your monkey, feed it the good stuff, right? So here's what we're having for breakfast today.

* Go to your deli, and ask for a butt end of corned beef. Anything over a quarter of a pound is great, and they don't need to slice it for you. You'll be mincing it up at home yourself.

* If you are pork-compliant, then chop up three good, fatty strips of bacon, and put them in a BIG, flat-bottomed pan on low heat. (The object here is to render their fat, not to cook the bacon; cooking the bacon is a side effect of the rendering.)

* If you are pork-resistant, then do the 2 - 1 mix of olive and sesame oils here, to add the smoky taste of the bacon.

* Peel a few cloves of garlic, and crush them with the flat of your knife. Throw those in with the bacon to render.

* go out to the sage bushes, and get a handful of fresh leaves. Throw those in whole too.

* Add a generous drizzle of oil into the pan to help the bacon give it up in case it's a bit chary. I think I put about two tablespoons of olive (because I keep olive oil ready to hand. You can use whatever kind of oil you fancy, really.)

* Rough-chop a medium onion (red ones are tastiest!) and enough potatoes to match volume, then half again. In my kitchen, that was three small blue potatoes, and one large red. (I have goth tubers. No one's surprised, I know.) You want to cut them fairly large, but fairly thin -- that is to say, quarter each potato longways, and then slice the pieces about half an inch thick at most. They need to be large enough that they'll hold together, but thin enough to cook all the way through. In my case, the blue potatoes were a bit elderly, so they didn't need any pre-cooking, but I slung the red in the microwave for two turns at 30 seconds apiece, so its texture would match the others. You do as you see fit.

* Take your biggest kitchen knife -- this is the time to break out your cleaver, if you've got one, -- hack your corned beef into crumbles. There's no rhyme or reason to this, you just whack away, and try not to let it fly all over the place.

* Once the bacon's not showing any white anymore (that is, all its fatty rind should now be caramel coloured and kind of translucent) you can dump the onion, potatoes, and beef into the pot. If you don't have enough oil to lightly coat everything, then add just a little more, but otherwise, just turn the lot to get it evenly mixed and coated, throw in salt and pepper to taste, pat it all down flat in the pan, and walk away.

* Ignore the sizzling, and the searing smells from the pan for a good long time. Hash is SUPPOSED to be kind of scorchy and burny, remember? If it really distressed you, you can fuss it about for awhile first, to try and get everything to cook up, but that's kind of redundant, since you're going to settle it to scorch soon anyway, and when you flip it over to do the other side, everything else will cook up then.

* Fry up an egg for each person you'll be feeding. (From our stovetop, it looks like this is going to feed four, which means two for us today, and two lunches for Dominus later on.) Scrape all the good stuff up from the bottom of the pan, and ladle the hash into the plates, then slap the egg on top.

* Serve with tabasco, worchestershire sauce, and ketchup on the table, but don't be surprised if your guests don't even notice they're there all.

* Make this noise: OM NOM NOM!!!

* Wish you were eating breakfast with Clue and Dominus today!

mood: Hungry! music: No More Stones -- Enter the Haggis tags: recipes

Because I have been baking a lot lately (and am still baking for Thanksgiving, currently, as we speak), and have not had a lot of sleep, and have had a lot of caffeine, and need to come up with ways to amuse myself, such as creating silly polls

Because I have been baking a lot lately, and have been wondering about the ways in which other people bake, and thinking about food in general, because food is good

And because I am procrastinating on writing, because I cannot and will not manage to write anything coherent for NaNo or any other story, when I am this sleep-deprived:

( I present to you, dear flist, the following poll )

mood: exhausted tags: adventures in cookery, happy thanksgiving to all, omg why is sleep, pumpkin cheesecake

Things for which I am thankful this evening:

* The Litter and the Leaves, by Enter the Haggis (And as you can purchase their albums directly from them, or, should you prefer it, cherrypick their song library at a buck a pop, YOU SHOULD BE DOING THAT!)

* That I have a husband who will close his computer and help me figure out why I'm grumpy when there's no easy answer, instead of taking it personally, or hiding in his WoW.

* That I have a husband who will close his computer and march straight into the kitchen with me when, upon failing to nail down a smoking gun, I give up and say "Let's go cook something." Didn't even ask what, or why, or complain that he'd rather be doing else. In short, he loves me, AND he loves cooking with me, and how can that not cheer me up?

* That I did not burn the orange peel when I forgot it was boiling away on the stove. I caught it JUST before the water was all gone, and the caramel began to really scorch, so there'll be no using the leftover syrup as I'd intended, but at least my candied orange peel survived!

* That Hilfy is here to inform me of the error of my ways, with her adorkable sulky-duck miao. *Snoodlesthekitteh!*

* That I did not burn out the blender motor when I made it pretend it was a food processor, and grind up all my carrots and ginger for the carrot cake I've just decided I'm making. That thing SO does not owe me!

* That I am living a life which allows me to concern myself with unfairnesses to other people, instead of having to focus on injustices against myself or my family. That I can afford altruism, and idealism, and pride. These things are so impossible, so out of reach in so many other people's lives, I can't help feeling gratitude that I can reach them, and I can afford to speak to them as well. I have the luxury of being able to DO something that is not just for me.

* That I live across the country from any of my birth family, and so will not have to eat their idea of Holiday Food tomorrow. Nor will I have to endure the casual, unthinking racism and sexism over the table, either. Which is good, because getting arrested over Thanksgiving is bad for the digestion, I hear.

* Giada Dilaurentis. Nuff said.

* That we've had contractors actually return our calls on the house issues, and it looks as though we'll have managed to save enough to cover the sill replacement by the time they can schedule us in. And once that is done, we can repair the great, gaping HOLE in our house! Hooray!

Okay then. That's lifted my mood from the stew. Time to go assemble my carrot cake now!
Avaunt!

Yes. Yes, she bloody well is.

UN unveils Network of Men to fight abuse of women
UN Secretary-General Bn Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon said men's attitudes to women needed to change

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has unveiled a Network of Men Leaders to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women.

He urged all men to join the campaign, saying about 70% of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence from men.

The 14 men currently in the network include Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Wednesday is the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women.

This is the 10th anniversary of the founding of the day.

'Global chorus'

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho and Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget are also among those chosen for the new list.

They had all demonstrated a commitment to oppose violence against women, said Mr Ban, adding that the group was expected to grow.

"These men will add their voices to the growing global chorus for action," he said.

Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, the secretary-general called on men and boys around the world to join the campaign.

Victim of violence (posed by model)
Women are most at risk from violent partners or a man they know

"Break the silence," he said. "When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence."

He said it was unacceptable that so many women experienced some form of physical or sexual violence from men - mostly from their husbands, intimate partners, or someone they knew.

He said men must teach each other that real men do not violate or oppress women - and that a woman's place is not just in the home or in the fields but in schools, offices and boardrooms.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace Laureate, said: "You are a weak man if you use your physical superiority to assault and brutalise women.

"I will continue fighting until the end of my days for the right of women and girls to live a life free from violence and abuse."

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.

mood: working

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/obese-students-may-be-barred-from-degree/tough-love/

You know, I'd still have a problem with this, even if they made UNDERWEIGHT students take the same 'health and fitness class' in order to graduate as the so-called "obese" students. Less of a problem, but still a problem.

Because by this university's flawed standard? I am obese. Meaning that, had I given the school my thousands of dollars and four years of my life, I would be barred from graduating too. I am a size 14 - 16, and am over the 30 bmi limit.

Methinks this university is going to spend a whole lot in legal fees, and soon!

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*

mood: busy music: PoA on in the background

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

mood: working

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.