snape potter figurine censored

FIC (HP): "Do Not Taunt the Happy Fun Horcrux!" (SS/HP, crack, PG-13)

Hello! Still not dead. :D

Title: Do Not Taunt the Happy Fun Horcrux!
Author: pen_and_umbra
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,922 words (complete)
Warnings: Crackfic.
Disclaimer: I pour beetles down the waistcoat of the suggestion that I own these characters.
Summary: The Final Battle To Decide The Fate Of the World And All Wizardingfolk is approaching and only one of Voldemort's Horcruxes remain. But what could it be, and what does Snape's Beefy McManstick have to do with it?

Notes: In an effort not to get Jossed and because I'm on vacation and my knee hurts so I can't play golf, I finally finished this bit of insanity. It's quite silly and ridiculous, I agree. No HP & DH spoilers.


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Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! *runs away*

ETA: Attempted to buy the GOF movie on DVD. Went to three (three!) different shops, all were sold out. Wtfucketh?
palpatine invader

FIC (SW): "Never More Beautiful" (Emperor/Vader, R)

Since the jedi__santa Secret Santas are no longer so secret, I can pimp this:

Title: Never More Beautiful
Author: pen_and_umbra
Fandom: Star Wars
Pairing: Emperor/Vader
Rating: R
Disclaimer: All various and sundry belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Summary: I could have been whole, with hands that would be warm to the touch and a heart that could skip a beat when he touches me.
Notes: Written for hilarita in the jedi__santa fic exchange. Man, it was boatloads of fun! And I got two -- two! -- kickass stories in return in the exchange. W00t!

Link: In the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, on sublevel 34, there is a door with no markings.

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On the M-E front, I'm done traipsing around the world for now, and am back with a peeling tan and absolutely no credit limit. Whew. The holidays plus two and a half weeks out of the country sure tax both the plastic and the sleep rhythm... which wasn't helped by my first day at work yesterday, which clocked in at ten (10) hours.

I also have the flu again, but that just means I get to have funky Tylenol PM dreams featuring kakadus and Elton John. Oi.

And how the heck are you doin'? Missed you all! ♥
mcg bah humbug

Merry Yuletide from Messrs Potter and Snape

I've been beset by work, yet again, and then I caught the flu from whichever level of Purgatory sadistic snotmonsters and Kleenex makers come from.

Ugh.

So I've been ill -- to the point where I had to admit to myself that no slashfest stories will get done this round, seeing as I had zero ability to form coherent sentences in my native tongue, let alone in English. Not that it stops me from feeling like a bloody heel for being such a flake. Sigh. I'm sorry, you all whose challenges I failed to fill, and thank you to all who volunteered as betas before I got ill. jedi__santa did get done, however, and I got my gift fic, too! It gave me the warm fuzzies, it did. It's called Foundation (Obi-Wan, Luke, PG).

Anyway. On the bright side, I just got promoted at work, the flu is finally subsiding, I have Salome at the opera on the 27th, I'll be on two weeks of vacation (!) starting next Thursday, and all my Holiday shopping is done. So I'm off to drink more glogg and bake plum tartlets but before that, I leave you with this:

Merry Yuletide from Messrs Potter and Snape


Myself, H. Potter, and Greasy Git S. Snape wish you a very merry Holiday season, Chrismukkwanzaa, or whichever holiday you might be celebrating or not. Thank you all for your cards and I'll see you with new stories, silliness, and whatnot in mid-January. ♥!
  • Current Music
    Beethoven's #4 B-Dur Op. 60 - Abbado, Berlin Phil
  • Tags
sauron lidless eye hobbit guy

FIC (LotR): "A Thousand Seasons of Cold" (Elrond/Gil-galad, PG)

Title: A Thousand Seasons of Cold
Author: pen_and_umbra
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Pairing: Elrond/Gil-galad
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I pour beetles down the waistcoat of the suggestion that I own these characters.
Summary: On the elven lay that is called The Fall of Gil-galad and how one Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, came to teach it to Samwise Gamgee.

Notes: Had this sitting around for a while and now thought, why the hell not? Beta read by the darling snapesgrrl; any mistakes remaining herein are mine. All feedback appreciated. 5,730 words, complete.

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I'm knackered and overworked and LJ won't give me comment notifications. Ugh. I know the entire Internet has been excited to the point of moistness about the GoF movie, but I'm not seeing it until tomorrow. Will possibly rave and gibber about it, if only because there seems to be so much attractive... everything in it!

Managed to finish my jedi__santa in time and will now need to work on my three (three!) slashfest prompts. Efforts thereof currently resemble my drunken forays into building spaceships from popsickle sticks and Silly Putty. But I've had the pleasure of re-reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. To wit:

"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect."

Oscar, how much do I love thee?

Oh! And the opera season is winding to a close, though I still have Salome in December. Just saw Manon Lescaut where Raili Viljakainen as the title character was, alas, a few ledger lines short of a full stave. Otherwise, a delightful show, and Puccini is always a joy. In spring, oh ah, Le Nozze di Figaro is back on the Nat Opera roster. Woo hoo!

Anyway. How are you all doing?
holmes no text white

Sherlock Holmes pastiches, literary and televised

"I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles."


So said Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Lion's Mane. Me, I can't claim to have a good memory, but I'm most certainly both a reader and strangely retentive at times. And, as anyone could tell you, a fan of Sherlock Holmes.

The public's fascination with the world's best known consulting detective didn't end with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death; there has been a steady stream of pastiches, re-works, analyses, and all manner of Sherlockian studies -- even to this day. So, while I've been ill, I've read two recent books that are clearly Holmes pastiches or approximations thereof, and I've watched two BBC filmatisations of Holmes stories.

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Executive summary? Watch the HOUN filmatisation. Read Chabon's book, but don't expect a true pastiche. All books and DVDs are available at least on Amazon.co.uk.

What makes me really sad is that they canned the Stephen Fry (curious trifle: I'm a member of the same Sherlockian society as Mr. Fry) and Hugh Laurie filmatisation of an unnamed Holmes story. That would've been ace.

So. Who would be your ideal on-screen Holmes? Or Watson?
potter figurine

Former Professor Snape's Illustrated Guide to Grudging Redemption

Cover

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Warnings: Sheer insanity. Snape/Harry-esque. Largish image. HBP spoilers! One-shot.

Ramblings: For those of you not into Potter, how about superheroes facing the Fashion Police? Or maybe you'd like to see my next morbid vacation destination? Me, I'm going back to bed to drink some more port wine. This flu is killing me. Sigh.
j'onn ass oreos

The Bride of Drunken Photoshopping Strikes Back!

Work has been several unmitigated and innovatively appalling levels of hell. I have been thisclose to stabbing the new business manager in the face with one of those wooden latte-stirring sticks several times this week. Cures have involved chocolate, booze, and plodding through The Brothers Karamazov (the fine line between "epic" and "tedious" is nowhere as evident as in that classic).

I also finally got around to watching seasons 1 of House (w00t! Bertie!) and CSI: New York. As inspired by the latter and that glass of port I just had:

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Considering the rate CSI breeds franchises, this wouldn't come as a surprise. And I really wanted to see Hermione whip out her wand and do a Dustus Fingerprintus on assorted doorknobs and loo porcelain to see who let the troll into the dungeons in PS/SS.

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In fandom-y things, I have ambitions this month:
  • Must get cracking with jedi__santa. The state of that story could be characterised as a dismal approximation of an outline.

  • Beta reading. That means imadra_blue and unsymbolic. Hopefully I'll have my brain back by the weekend and will email you with the goods then.

  • The kabillion slashfest things I must do. On the bright side, that means I soon get to abandon the Karamazovs for Dorian Gray.

  • Ought to stop obsessing about Q.I., especially when it leads to moments of blistering RPS insanity on my part. Oy vey.

And how are you all?
vader pimp my sith

Star Wars T-Shirt Slogan Competition -- the Winners!

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The runaway winner, with 101 votes, is:

Come to the Dark Side... We Have Candy!


Congratulations to the submitter of the winning slogan, zenmondo! The second place was taken by "Looking for love in Alderaan places" (which still makes me giggle), submitted by katie8787.

I also did the random raffle (with an actual randomiser script I wrote, go me) and the winners of random Star Wars stuff are:

zigsternenstaub
darkyo
watergal

Congrats to all winners, and thank you to all who participated!

Chances are, at some point I'll make t-shirt designs of more than just the winner slogan and if that happens, I'll put all of them up for grabs, in case some of you might want to use them for t-shirts or whatnot, too.

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Today is also my first LJ anniversary. I had pie (PIE!) to celebrate, and I wish I could make pie for all of you as well. ♥!

ETA: Oopsie in the raffle. Sigh. I sucketh. Fixed.
fry for god

Star Wars iconspam, part googol! Plus, Q.I.

Star Wars icons, emphasis on the (hopefully) funny. Mostly villains.

Teasers:
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Speaking of Star Wars, VOTE VOTE VOTE! Voting on the t-shirt slogan ends tomorrow on October 26th so you have less than 24 hours to go and agitate your fellow LJers to vote for you.

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It's perfectly valid to say that Star Trek debates precisely the Nietzschean diktats of storytelling, the Apollonian and the Dionysian [...]

Oh, Stephen Fry, how much do I love thee?

I've been catching up on my Q.I., hence the sentiment. If you are unaware, Q.I. is a peculiar quiz show hosted by Mr. Fry, and it is simply the wittiest, most hilarious thing I've ever watched in my life (M. Python excluded). Topics range from Oliver Cromwell and beetles to mincemeat pies, and there's often thorough discussion on e.g. why the ancient Greeks sometimes inserted radishes in their arses, by means of pounding them in with a mallet.

I kid you not.

Or if such things do not capture your interest, you can always be entertained by the Alan Davies/Stephen flirting, the frequent use of very impressive if tweedy words, the oft-ivoked word "cock" and associated innuendo, and Stephen saying "man-on-man action" many, many times.

Fridays at 10 pm on BBC2, also on BBC4 (schedule). Squeed over at qi_fans.
vader chocolate mousse

Star Wars T-Shirt Slogan Competition -- voting

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It's October 21st in my neck 'o the woods, so it's time to vote for your favourite slogan. The prizes and whatnot were detailed in the sign-up post, and now it's time for you all to pick your favourite.

Poll #595980 T-Shirt Slogan Voting
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None. Participants: 398

What is the niftiest of them all?

View Answers
Come to the Dark Side... we have candy!
103(25.9%)
Anakin is "The Apprentice"
4(1.0%)
Obi-Wanna Lay Ya?
11(2.8%)
Looking for love in Alderaan places
80(20.1%)
When fisted by Frank Oz you have been, walk with spring in your step, you will not.
41(10.3%)
Sith Lords Inc. Killing Jedi near you for 5000 years and counting.
14(3.5%)
Kentucky Fried Anakin
8(2.0%)
Yoda of Borg I am. Futile resistance is. Assimilated you will be, hmm?
27(6.8%)
In Force we trust
12(3.0%)
Pwned, you are
17(4.3%)
The hand's durasteel. No, it doesn't vibrate.
9(2.3%)
Jedi for hire
7(1.8%)
Jedi do it with lightsabers
19(4.8%)
Sith happens
28(7.0%)
Come to the dork side!
18(4.5%)


The number of entries selected for voting was limited by the max number of options in LJ's poll generator, alas. I had to cut a number of fabulous entries, which will in all probability and with no shame whatsoever be resurrected in cracktastic icons by yours truly.

Voting will be open until October 26th. On that day, I will close the poll, draw the random lottery, and announce the winners.

Thank you to all participants! Much appreciated.

ETA: Yes, you can vote even if you're nominated. In fact, I encourage recruiting sockpuppets and friends and random strangers on LJ to vote for you -- nobody will ever know. ;)