Bathos

( Definitions )

Oliver/Percy

• Teaching by Example, short story, PG-13: Oliver is distracted in class and clothing is swapped.
• Plein Air for Two***, novelette, R: Percy is far too old to be getting a clue, but better late than never. Explicit sexuality!
• Five Ways Oliver Never Helped Percy Reconcile With His Family, short stories, PG-13: in which Oliver bears the brunt of cracked-out plot devices, from furtive wanking to pregnancy.
• Probability*, flashfic, PG-13: Percy is an enormous nerd and Oliver likes it.
• Verisimilitude, short story, R: I really can't give a description without spoiling the punchline.

Remus/Sirius

• Trompe L'Oeil for Two, short story, PG-13: the totally canon-compliant happily-ever-after.
• Plein Air for Two***, novelette, R: the further adventures of two very badly behaved portraits, sequel to the above. Explicit sex!
• History Repeats Itself, flashfic, PG: which makes the reader wonder, like Hermione, whether anyone has actually read "Hogwarts:A History".
• Riding Like a Big Dog, short story, PG-13: Remus eavesdrops and is needlessly jealous until Sirius clears up the confusion. Featuring my OT3!
• Teaching by Example, short story, PG-13: the bits of Prisoner of Azkaban that didn't show up in thirteen-year-old Harry's POV.

Other pairings, which tend to all go together: Hermione/Ron, Draco/Harry, Pansy/Ginny

• Gryffindor/Slytherin Relations, short story, R: total crack, centered around Harry and Draco, but woe betide all pairings unlucky enough to be swept into this silliness!
• Matching-Muff Matrimony****, novella, NC-17: like the offspring of crackfic and a romance novel, wherein Ginny and Pansy find ways to tolerate each other in their marriage of convenience.

Mostly for my own benefit so that I am reminded to work on them, here are works-in-progress:
( Little bunny Frou-Frou, hopping through the forest... )

And here are ideas that are officially on the backburner right now:
( ...scooping up the field-mice and bopping them on the head! )

It's been a long time, and I know I did you wrong. It's totally reprehensible to drop out of fic exchanges at the last minute, especially when one left obscure-ass prompts that are unlikely to be of interest to anyone else. It's almost as reprehensible as not responding to comments that you've been faithfully leaving on my fic all this time!

What can I say, baby: I'm really sorry. It was me, not you. I had to deal with getting my shit together in real life, such as figuring out what I want to do with my life and securing employment and travelling to see family and figuring out how to go about starting my own family.

And, I have to be honest with you: I've been seeing other hobbies since we last got together. I have developed quite a torrid little fling with running... and training for a half-marathon is kind of a commitment that I've made to my other hobby, and that comes first right now.

But still, sweetiecakes, I miss you, and so, fandom, I'm begging you: please take me back! I got a steady job, so your mother doesn't have to nag about how I'm no good for you. I'm happy with my life, so I promise you won't have to deal with my emo wangsting anymore. And I'm even 70 lbs lighter than when we last saw each other, so now you don't have to lie to me anymore about whether or not that font color makes my butt look big.

It's been a long time, I know - I missed your latest canon release and all kinds of LJ wank. And I'm still not sure I'm ready to make any full-on commitments to you. For example, I don't think I'm right for fic exchanges, and I won't toy with that kind of promise anymore.

But, still, in spite of it all, I think it's time we started seeing each other again!

Love and contrition,
Eloise

I am going to have the hardest time getting the gristle out of my tire grooves in time for Pride! But I stopped by at the video store and rented an Almodovar and a Jackie Chan, yay, so we'll be entertained, even if the rental fees might add up by the time this whole zombie apocalypse thing blows over.

And isn't it lucky I spent last weekend canning so we totally have a lot of delicious fruit preserves to avoid scurvy when we run out of refrigerated fruit and vegetables, in like a week? I am totally going to start a new comm, nozombiehomemkr, since slashyhomemaker hasn't updated today and I fear there may be none left. Defeating the assault of evil, brain-sucking minions of evil, one helpful household hint at a time!

I totally refuse to become a zombie! I am so a vegetarian. No, cheating with sushi doesn't mean I'm willing to cheat with human brains. Although, I suppose Martha might have some tips to make the ritualistic sucking out of brains a more dignified and special occasion... then I suppose I might reconsider.

I'm only doing this because it's late enough that everyone's probably seen the explanation before, because I'd hate to spread apocalypse panic, but in case you haven't, clicky the link

I am lying here on my stomach in our lovely if slightly over-the-top canopy bed, with the laptop in front of me, pretending to be working on editing my HD_hols fic so that it includes more, you know, H/D, but really reading my flist. imogenelovelace is using the small of my back as a pillow while rereading GoF, but also contemplating why the tummy bits of our Persian cat get furry faster than the rest of her when really, they're the bits that should stay hairless longer in order to make the traumatic shaving process less frequent. (Perhaps it's because she exposes The Tummy Which Shall Never Be Brushed Upon Pain of Death And Not Her Own to the world so much: right now she's in her usual upside-down doughnut configuration... where "she" is the cat, not the wife.) It's all very cozy and exactly what 2 am should look like.

But then, my dear resident Grammar Goddess shatters the domestic idyll with the following bombshell:

"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy, sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."

ACK IMPROPER LACK OF SUBJUNCTIVE OH PERCY MY BOY WHAT HAS SHE DONE TO YOU?!?! (... where "she" is J.K.R.)

Please someone tell me that this is J.K.R. and not Percy. I am dying. And if I am dying, when I am capable of such horrible sins against grammar as the above sentence and the second paragraph, it is dire indeed.

Dear new friends: I am going to do a proper introduction post eventually. In the meantime, I promise I am not always this spastic, honestly.

ETA: This is the worse mood theme ever, if that's the yellow smiley face's idea of shocked. My own face is more like O.o with flaily hands for emphasis.

Current Mood:

shocked

Seriously, this cracks me up. I think it's great that this quiz just happens to include slashy couples like it's totally no big deal. Aww.

ETA: Actually, what really cracks me up is the prospect of Draco and Tom Riddle having a nice, cozy, domestic family together. Heee.

imogenelovelace

I have the best wife ever. I don't think there's anything better to counteract the Master's induced emo! <3

floweringjudas

Plus, it's generally been a great time to be a Percy fan (and a crummy time to be finishing up grad school):

• There's a new community, frecksandspecs, which is a Percy-centric fic-and-art community which I am thrilled to have been invited to.

• Also open are signups for the percy_ficathon third wave, and since the deadline isn't until August, you have no reason not to sign up. Just imagine, you could be asked to write my cracktastic prompt requesting Percy to be set in a Lifetime Original Movie...or the several dozen much more inspired prompts which almost make me want to create sockpuppets to enter multiple times. I can hardly contain my excitement! Also, it looks like Percy/Oliver is showing up a lot in requests, which should either make you want to sign up to add some diversity or should make you want to sign up to get some of these fabulous prompts.
  

Plus, hp_springsmut has been a veritable font of Percy/Oliver! All of it worth checking out, but, specifically I wanted to point out WAGs to Riches, by nqdonne which really needs more attention than it's gotten. Nonmagical AU, NC-17. Just go read it - it's profoundly funny and the smut is sexy, with a really fabulously oblivious Percy, a wonderful supporting cast of Charlie, and a sweet, crushing Oliver that's totally written just the way the ship makes most sense to me. Also features amazingly random post-shag dialog, very realistic!

OK, back to work now. But you should go read the above stories, which is really what I'd like to do!

Precision Speaking by crawfords_lover, very soft R.

Honestly, in a very short space blindmouse has perfectly distilled down the entire experience of suffering from a tormented hopeless crush, including that glorious moment when you realize it might not be hopeless after all. It's sweet without being saccharine, adorable without being fluffy, and poetic without being purple. Besides the brilliant writing, I especially adore her characterizations of Oliver (the narrator) and Percy (the very carefully observed), and wonder how long it will take them to produce an actual conversation.

I defy anyone to read this and not flail with joy, and since it's only 1500 words, you have no excuse for not brightening your day considerably. Highly recommended ... even for those on the flist who think I'm a bit insane with my fondness for the pairing!

From the ever-entertaining ratemyprofessors.com, two independent evaluations (not by me!):

• great lecturer; occasionally shows a sadistic side to make Severus Snape proud
  
• Babylonian math + scribes getting caned + Snape + fluffy black dog + brilliant lectures. Sleekest essay comments I've ever gotten. Doesn't spare the vitriol. Not for the faint of heart. Quote: "Focus now. This isn't a theology class. You can't believe in gravity just because someone told you to."
  

I hope that I someday get such awesome evaluations from my students. I hope that someday I will be that awesome, period.

I couldn't agree more with the comments. He even has the nose, although his hair is greying and more frizzy than greasy most days. (That picture of him with his fluffy black dog might bring a Snack shipper into paroxysms of glee, I swear.) I just loved his class, and I kept all of my notes, which faithfully recorded his snarky witticisms and occasional tirades at hapless students who failed to meet standards.

This leads me to believe that if I were a Hogwarts Mary-Sue, I'd totally be an enormous Snape fangirl (platonically, though!) who hangs onto his every lecture word and finds all of his bitterness marvelously witty. (I totally rocked organic chemistry, so I naturally my Mary-Sue would be great at potions.)

So: do you have any people in your lives who eerily remind you of HP characters? What would your Hogwarts Mary-Sue or Gary-Stu be like?

ETA: For the record, there are four other professors who have been compared to Snape on ratemyprofessors.com, but only once apiece, and they seem to refer more to looks than to the entire package of vitriol and nose. Apparently not many schools are so lucky as to have a Snape on their faculty! Snape himself also has a page, but it's surprisingly unfunny.

• visoka wrote me happy, non-angsty Remus/Sirius at my request: Let Me Count the Days, PG. This ficlet is so lovely without being overly sentimental, and I defy anyone to be charmed! (And, if the fluffyness proves too much for you, read History for which is is a prequel.)

• cerridwen666 wrote me Percy/Oliver: Dropping In, G. I particularly like the dynamic here: the dialog paints such a vivid picture of their relationship.
  

So, request a pairing and something like a prompt, and I'll do my best to write you something!

rillalicious

hpvalensmut

I'm still incoherent over how incredibly awesome this story is, but it's not just my shippiness that makes me insist that you all go read it right now, because this is fanfiction at its best: fitting into the crevices of Canon, funny and angsty, hot and awkward, and most of all real. This story brilliantly embodies everything that I am always moaning I want to read more of: canon-compliance and in-character-ness and realistic sex and tons of small details that add up to really craft a complete universe. I would be deliriously happy to rec this to you even disregarding the pairing, which, in case you missed it, is PERCY/OLIVER and you all know how ecstatic that makes me! :D (Ecstatic enough to use the most obnoxious html tag ever invented in a deadly one-two combination with Capslock of Joy, apparently. So sorry, but it's the only thing that gets close to capturing my utter delight right now.)

There are a couple of very minor grammar issues, in the form of a truncated sentence, but you would be very remiss indeed to let that stop you from reading one of the best Percy/Oliver stories I have read in a very long time, and indeed, one of the best fanfics period. The story unfolds inexorably over many years and really reminds me quite a lot of Brokeback Mountain, only starring a deliciously repressed Weasley, an adorably determined Oliver, and less depression overall.

Go forth and read it, secure in the knowledge that you are putting your long weekend to the best possible use!!

ETA: The mystery author was revealed to be el_em_en_oh_pee who very cleverly poses as a beta reader in the comments to this post, sneaky thing that she is!

Current Mood:

giddy

I've been translating a wonderfully smutty Percy/Oliver story from German to English for the lovely Peilless from the Percy/Oliver Writer's Support Network on Yahoo (yes, such a thing exists, and yes, I'm a mod). Then, emiime ranting about pretentious use of British slang by Americans spawned an interesting discussion on language. Tangentially, I realized that the foreign-language-learning abilities of fanfic are sadly underutilized most of the time, at least by me. Plus, if you're writing it in a foreign language, you can be unapologetically fluffy and shamelessly self-indulgent, because hey, at least your story is justified by language-learning aspects alone.

So, I thought - perhaps it's time to start an initiative to read/write fanfic in a foreign language. To that end, I present: The Cunning Linguist Foreign Language Slash Challenge.

My personal challenges (and no, I won't count English for myself, because I'm totally fluent):

1. Write a short story in Spanish, no matter how fluffy or forced my attempts at reviewing vocabulary might be -- Las Aventuras Cotidianas de Percy y Oliver, anyone? I'm thinking the first installment might be "una historia en que van de compras" because I've totally forgotten all of that useful vocabulary around "los comestibles".
   
2. I am also promising to make use of Adela711's awesome original slash recslist to read more German, to keep that part of my brain from atrophying. I will also attempt to find some good Spanish fic out there, and then I will read it!

Anyone want to join me in linguistic self-improvement by reading or writing fic outside of their native language? I'd count anything from making an effort to Britpick when you normally don't, to some kind of "See Dick. See Willie watch Dick. Dick asks Willie to dance! See Willie the dance of secret passion!" exercise in the foreign language you haven't used since high school. Let me know and I'll list you here!

People who are made of awesome and have risen to the challenge:

• The amazing visoka wrote Aimer et Adorer (aka The French Thing) - a Pansy/Ginny drabblet in French, with English translation thoughtfully provided... all without a dictionary!!

• Another gifted Francophone, emei wrote Quand la lune se lève, a really lovely, atmospheric and angsty drabble on Padma's response to Parvati/Lavender. In an stupendous feat of thinking in three languages at once, Emei provided a translation to the English as well!

• Singlehandedly increasing the amount of Arabic HP fic on the internet by 50%, kheha wrote An Untitled Amos Diggory/Mundungus Fletcher Ficlet, which I would rate PG-13 for spicy and hilarious pick-up lines. Please read the English translation even if you don't read Arabic, because it's brilliant and funny and wonderful in a way that would impress me without my having known that it was written in a foreign language!

• The fabulously trilingual penhaligonblue wrote the absolutely adorable Remus/Sirius drabblet Bise/Basium/Kiss, thereby demonstrating that French/Latin/English is an OT3. She points out that "Remus's and Sirius's names look so at home when couched in Latin," and I couldn't agree more: honestly, slash in Latin is capable of single-handedly justifying the existence of the internet for me.

• I rather feebly attempted to write La Sección Restricta, a Percy/Oliver drabble in Spanish (English translation follows). And, because I fail at angst even more than at remembering how to conjugate verbs in Spanish, it has a happy ending sequel: Las Duchas de Quidditch.
  

Non-English HP fic-finding resources:

• fanfiction.net once again proves itself a bastion of quantity, if not necessarily quality, by allowing you to get HP fic in more languages than I can easily list here. (ETA: If I could find three Spanish Percy/Oliver slashfics (!), none of which were written by me, ff.net surely has the pairing and language of your choice as well!)
  
• OWL features foreign language fic in their parseltongue section.
  
• The HP books are themselves available in Latin and Ancient Greek as well as Welsh, so honestly, ya'll can find at least official Canon, no matter how obscure your foreign language of choice! (Too bad my Latin is too shoddy to read even a children's book, but I'm totally going to get the Ancient Greek one for my mom!)
  
• something else you know about that you'll tell me about in the comments!
  

And, in general, I wanted to give major props to the HP fen who aren't native speakers, but who write in English anyway. You have my undying admiration, because while my Percy and Oliver will still be arguing over whether to buy the the oranges because they're on sale or the strawberries because they taste better with chocolate body paint, you are crafting amazingly complex, beautiful stories in a language not your own!

Current Mood:

cheerful

( Rather like Goldilocks and the three bears, only Eloise and the three release parties... )

liseuse

Room with a View by Liseuse, Harry/Draco, unrated but I'd say PG

I keep saying that I want to write Harry/Draco/Myrtle fic set in HbP, and then failing at following through because I am just abysmal at smut. Someday! Or maybe I can convince imogenelovelace...

ETA: And, also, the best music video of all time (very much NWS):
( Also featuring the world's best lyrics. Seriously! )

Enjoy, and now, back to the grading for me!

visoka

Gilt by Visoka - Percy/Fleur, G.

It's gorgeous and beyond amazing descriptions, it pulls off Percy pining in such a stark and angry way that I truly find it believable -- which those of you who have heard me snarking about Percy/Oliver badfic know is quite an enormous feat, really, because pining!Percy is so easy to do incredibly badly. The fic is really spectacularly beautiful, and if that weren't enough, it comes with an equally stunning Bach accompaniment. I lovelovelove it when fic comes with additional media, and I love Bach and the whole thing manages to push (even keysmash!) loads of my buttons and is just generally made of awesome! And I am also really intrigued by the pairing, especially in an unrequited way so that Percy is maximally alone when Oliver comes into his life so that teh hurt/comfort can commence full-stream ahead.

And in general, hurray for new additions to the flist! And also, hurray for it being Friday, at long last. At the end of the week after sushi and a chance to read some brilliant fic, and a chance to take full advantage of the sheer sexy power of the command line in OSX... and the world is a much brighter place!

Current Location:	home again, home again, jiggety-jog
Current Mood:	delighted
Current Music:	Partita No. 2 in D Minor - Allemanda

( 1. Percy ) ( 2. Oliver ) ( 3. Tonks )

I love having a laptop, and I love unsecured wifi even more. I'm posting this while waiting at the bar for seats at my sushi restaurant to open up. Multitasking, fic-writing-in-public and immediate spousal beta gratification for the win!

ETA: what is it with even the most euphemistic of descriptions leading to the actual location being described properly by Google Maps? Seriously, do other cities not have conveyor-belt sushi? (If so, my condolences, because few things are quite as much fun as watching an ever-changing parade of sushi trundle past you on conveyor belts, model trains or boats.)

What didn't occur to me is that our bathroom, in spite of an innocuous pink decorating scheme and a huge amount of bath and hair products jammed onto every free surface (the floor is the approximate size of a large commemorative-edition postage stamp), is also eligible for the title of the most depraved bathroom ever... replete with fandom elements, which is why it's going in this journal.

( Read more... )

Having realized that our bathroom is rather on the fast train to TMIville, I can't help but wonder what the plumber thought about us, based on having seen our bathroom. (I refuse to think about what the landlady thought, because it's just too embarrassing.)

And I can honestly say that I didn't think about any of this until just now when Imogene mentioned it and I (literally) fell on the floor with shock and laughter. You mean, other people's bathrooms don't look like this?

So, question: anyone else have embarrassing fandom outing stories?

Very similar to the whole American Amazon.com phenomenon... except that the title says [Children's Edition] and I get the following option:

"Buy this book with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) [Adult Edition] by J. K. Rowling today!"

So I understand that to mean that there's a children's edition, with, say, less of Harry dying ... and less hotgaysex?

OMG. So far I only knew about the different British and American versions. I demand the [Gay Slashy Edition], if that's not what is meant by "adult".

Seriously, wtf?

ETA: Apparently there was also a [Children's Edition] and an [Adult Edition] for HbP. Oh, okay. Anyone know how they're different?

ETA 2: Apparently, by adult they mean "more boring coverart" and not "Remus and Sirius getting an extended sex scene". Boo.