The Heavily Warded and Secret Diaries of Scorpius Malfoy, aged Eight and A Half

Prompts 18-22 : champagne, winters solstice, snowman, mistletoe, wreath

Also, missing 8-10: Christmas tree, Santa's Lap, Christmas Crackers - oops


( Read more... )

And fukingprole has done some delightful little illustrations of Scorpius to go with my fic. Just how I saw his little face. He's brilliant, and I am very very squeeful about them. ( Read more... )

Tis the season to be jolly.

LOL

That is all.

~grin~

Still looking for a fic with a flamboyantly gay Harry. But today I want something different.

I want Harry/Voldemort.

And the absolute challenge: I want something of a romance. Between Harry and Voldie. With a happy end. I’d even accept dub-con, though no non-con. But I really, really want some Harry/LV.

I want a story with a manipulative and/or evil Dumbledore, or one with a (slightly) dark Harry. I don’t want the Slytherins suddenly to become all nice and cuddly, or Voldemort to be a nice guy who has just been misunderstood (although I wouldn’t say no to that, either). They are still “evil” – or at least ambitious, cunning, sneaky elitists. LV is still all about blood purity and World Domination™. But for whatever reason, Harry is drawn in, convinced, seduced, whatever. In the ideal case, the story explores the unique connection between Harry and LV.

I remember, long ago, reading a story a bit like that. Voldie and Harry were mates, and DD had blocked Harry and handed him over to the Dursleys so that Harry wouldn’t connect with LV and stay the “saviour”. I want something like that again.

Doesn’t matter how long or short. Just finished.

And if there isn’t a story like that, someone ought to write it.

Yes, I’m looking at you.

Feathered-white branch dips low,
Hydrangea blossoms snowballs,
Mist-breaking stark trees.


Also, aching bones.

Sunday morning and the world was white. We played and danced and rolled around in the fresh snow until it was no longer fresh.

Today I cycled through the snow, which was less fun, with the blubber and the slipperiness and no hot chocolate at work.

It took a lot longer than I expected. And technically I haven't really started moving in yet.

I smell. My eyes are burning. I've been up all night. And ... fuck it. I might be dead.

A second ago, I posted my Yuletide fic. Now I'll be chewing on my fingernails until the stories go up and I hear from my recipient. First time in a new fandom is always nerve-wracking.


The weather has now decided it really wants to be winter. It started snowing on Friday afternoon, had a short break until Saturday afternoon, and kept going until last night.

( Snow picspam! )


Looks like we'll be having a great day today. Which is wonderful. Unfortunately, temperatures rose last night before they fell again. That means that some of the snow thawed and then froze over night. With the result that I can't open the shutters 'cause they're frozen. *sighs*

I meant to write. Instead, I fiddled with some pictures. Here's the result:

( can't decide which version I like better ... )

I are in Wisconsin.

I made great time on my trip. It's amazing how much faster that trip goes in a nice car.

Because yes, I'm driving a rental. A nice new Pontiac G6. Mine will get fixed when I get back. It was great to see my folks and my grandparents, everyone was suitably amazed to see this much less of me, all is well.

Quick update from the land of cheese.

Awww.

I'm so sad. I just read that Brittany Murphy died today. That's messed up. She was only 32. I've always liked her acting and recently saw a show she played in (as a murdered young, struggling mother) "The Dead Girl." It was a great performance.

If you want to see a picture of her and read about it, you can go to:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091221/ap_on_en_mo/us_obit_brittany_murphy_19

:(

There's a page someone sent me the link to where a guy has put up some great Christmas lights that flash to the beats of Christmas music. You can check it out here:

http://www.holdman.com/christmas/video2008.asp

My fave is the Carol of the Bells.

Stolen with alacrity from torenheksje

1. Elaborate on your default icon. It is of the TARDIS next to a Christmas tree. No explanation is necessary.

2. What's your current relationship status? Married.

3. Ever have a near-death experience? No, but I have read of many; also of scientific research about neurons and brain whatnots that can explain the white light etc. As a rationalist, this explanation satisfies me.

4. Name an obvious quality you have. Warmth.

5. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now? Let It Snow.

6. Name a celebrity you would marry. Alan Rickman. Although I should imagine he'd be pretty difficult to live with.

7. Who will cut and paste this first? I have no idea.

8. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity? Not a celebrity as such... I was once asked if I was a minor character (long gone) from Coronation Street. In fact, the character regularly wore a duplicate of my favourite top at the time!

9. Do you wear a watch? What kind? Yes, a lovely Seiko that was my 21st birthday present from my parents and bought in France during my year out there. It has been sent away for repair (I don't think any original part is left!) and I've been without it for weeks and weeks. I have a nice watch on loan from the jeweller, though, so that's okay. It drives me mad not to wear a watch.

10. Do you have anything pierced? Only my ears, and only once in each lobe.

11. Do you have any tattoos? No.

12. Do you like pain? Depends!

13. Do you like to shop? I loathe and detest shopping IRL, but ADORE internet shopping and want to marry it.

14. What was the last thing you paid for with cash? Some meat pies from the hospital shop, for mine and Joe's lunch, on Friday.

15. What was the last thing you paid for with your credit card? Something from Amazon. My debit card was lunch today at Morrison's.

16. Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? My best friend's daughter.

17. What is on your desktop background? A head and shoulders shot of Snape.

18. What is the background on your cell phone? A cute picture of Abbie smiling.

19. Do you like redheads? Yes, and I like to dye my hair red too!

20. Do you know any twins? Vaguely to say hi to. Daughter's friends, identical.

21. Do you have any weird relatives? All of them.

22. What was the last movie you watched? Coraline in 3D last night.

23. If you had $100 to spare, who would you give it to? I can't envisage that ever being the case, more's the pity! Cats Protection.

24. What was your favorite book as a child? Alice in Wonderland.

And I'm knackered. Oh yes. Half way, I reckon. And still lots of stuff to throw away, and the unpacking to come.


And in the meantime I went to see Sandi Toksvig's Christmas Cracker - I could see why it got the bad reviews, but on the other hand if you went there to enjoy yourself, you could suck some enjoyment out of it. Rather like an old fashioned Variety show.

And also the Misanthrope with Damien Lewis and Kiera Knightley. Persons in the seats behind us left at half time because it was full of stuff about art and boooooring. ~shakes head~

It's had mixed reviews. Kiera has come in for a bit of stick. I'm not sure that the timing in some of the exchanges are quite right in places, so they're still at about 90-95% of finished, and it is true she is painfully thin and perhaps not the most accomplished stage actress you've seen.

OTOH, I adored the production. Mostly because it accorded entirely with my preoccupations of the baroque, the postmodern, and the political. The Guardian were sniffy about the adaptation and said it was hard to see its relevance and I'm surprised, because I had no difficulty in seeing it.

This review of another production in Dublin strikes closer to the play I thought I was watching.

(ETA hthe adaptro's own take on things http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/dec/16/martin-crimp-moliere )

( Cut for spoilers )

I might go again, towards the end of the run and see how the performances have changed.

Also, critic was wrong about the highest price of the tickets, which is £65 actually.

Well, my pre-holiday season just took an abrupt left turn out of "awesome" and into "suck-ass."

Thursday night I had this super fun unexpected evening of the kind that makes me love my life. More on that later, with pictures.

Last night I'm coming out of CVS and...my car's broken down. Yeah. It won't idle. The engine turns over and runs only as long as I'm giving it gas, the minute I take my foot off to shift out of park it dies. Fuuuuuuuck.

It's towed to a mechanic, who's like "it could be several things, it's generally screwed."

I have no time for this. Leaving tomorrow. So, rental car. My damn car can sit out in the cold and snow for a week for all I care.

But you know? I've gone from being pissed to grateful. Thank you, crappy car. Thank you for breaking down HERE and NOW instead of while I'm out on the road, or in Janesville. Thank you for breaking down at a CVS three blocks from my house so I could walk home. If you had to be this irritating and expensive, thank you for doing it with relatively less inconvenience than there could have been.

Jen has a Mars Bar advent calendar this year, and on each little door a question is asked. No answers to the questions are actually supplied, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that the answers lie in the chocolate shape behind the door.

Not so.

Here is a sample, just for fun.

Q. What transport does Santa use to deliver gifts?
A. A snowman with a broomstick.

Q. Who is the famous snowman who also lives at the North Pole?
A. A train.

Q. Who helps Santa make the toys?
A. A present.

Q. How many sides does a snowflake have?
A. Christmas pudding.

Q. WHat is Santa Claus famous for saying?
A. Christmas pudding.

Q. What do people do underneath the mistletoe?
A. Tree.

Q. On what street did a Santa Claus Miracle occur?
A. Bell.

Q. WHat colour is Rudolph's nose?
A. Teddy bear.

Q. What, traditionally, goes on top of a Christmas tree?
A. A teddy bear.

Q. How many legs help pull Santa's sleigh?
A. Cracker.

Q. Where does Santa usually land his sleigh?
A. Teddy bear.

Q. What do you sometimes have to represent the countdown of the days to Christmas?
A. A train.

Q. Where does Santa live?
A. Present.

Q. What Christmas item looks like a giant sock which you hang on your fireplace for Santa to give you presents?
A. A train.

Q. Traditionally, how does Santa get into your house to deliver presents?
A. Tree.

Q. According to the song, how many days of Christmas are there?
A. Bell.

Q. According to the song, what do you receive on the fifth day of Christmas?
A. A present.

Q. What are pulled at the Christmas dinner table?
A. Snowmen with broomsticks.

Q. Fill in the blanks for this famous Christmas bird - "Robin ____ Breast"
A. Snowman.

ETA: We just discovered that the real answers are on the reverse of the calendar. Just in case we couldn't get them on our own.

Tell me, my knowledgeable and well-read flist, are there any fics with a really camp Harry around? I know a lot where Draco is absolutely, flamboyantly gay. But for a change, I'd like Harry to be the one to fuss over clothes and his nails and his hair, etc. Any slash pairing welcome, just make Harry the flamboyant one. :)

Weather: About a week agol, winter decided to come and visit Germany. It's cold. No more Sahara winds, nope, now we get Arctic winds. And then, two nights ago: Snow! And it hasn't thawed yet! Okay, it wasn't much, bit of white dusting the ground, but yay, snow! :)

Jobs: I had another appointment with a Minion today. We managed to find two job offers that I'm going to apply for. I found another one myself, and then there's the application for the scholarship. Suddenly, there's a lot of work to do. :)

Writing: Talking about writing stuff, I'm so far behind on adventdrabbles it's not funny. *sniff* I want to write more drabbles but Muse is busy playing around with Draco Dormiens and some originals and doesn't pay attention. Hmph. And I still haven't decided on a prompt from hp_kinkfest. I'm such a cliché.

Also: Dear fellow perverts admirers of Handsome Hunks in the Alltogether - need an icon? Or a hundred? Go and check out strikers_design's Adults Only icons. Warning: NWS and serious danger of sudden combustion ahead. ;)

We were promised heaps of it, and a day off work.

And there isn't any at all. Bugger.


This week has been rather pressured, what with moving, a bit of a deal going down at work, trying to get all the work done before Xmas that needs doing..... writing Scorpius, trying to finish the Snapely Holidays piece which is now hugely over due.

I enjoyed the opportunity to hold forth on the three month LIBOR rate and whether it represented market value these days; thanks to reading the BBC's business pages, I know it doesn't, and I sounded all authoritative.

Someone dumped some work on me. I've decided I don't like her. It's little things, like her ignoring me at a conference we were both at rather than introducing me to her contacts, and she expected me to come down and collect the work I was doing for her as a favour rather than her bringing it up to me. Clearly she thinks she's more important than me. Which turns out to be slightly true. She's certainly not brighter though. Sniffs. You have to keep the talent happy, especially when you want a favour, and especially when the talent is me. For some talent is easy going and placid, and not that invested in hierarchy. Coughs and hides green and silver striped scarf. Some talent.

Also, I want a payrise.

Having been in the new flat for a couple of days, I still can't find out where to turn on the heating. I think it's built in. Which means so are the bills.

The other day I was watching Night at the Museum: II because the sproglet wanted to see a dinosaur skeleton come to life again, and was suddenly seriously disturbed. It has Custer, whining about how all he is remembered for is getting his men killed (how 'bout participation in genocide? I thought that was the biggie), and then the night guard goes, "Oh no! You'll be remembered for fighting museum exhibits now! Man up!"

Good, clean fun for kids!

... Or: hello something we'll never ever get on DVD. I'm sure there's more offensive stuff in there but I wasn't paying close attention, and that was what crossed the line for me.

More about that here.

Via metafandom: thete1 says it better: "The simple fact of the matter is that every dollar you spend on these films (and TV shows, and books, and everything else) is a dollar telling Them -- yes, Them -- that it's just fine to piss all over me and other people of color for the sake of 'entertainment.' You're part of the problem."