without hesitation

I love my yuletide assignment. Love. I may manage to sink to a new low. :D

I'll be posting a letter to whoever was assigned to me later on today, but for right now I'm past exhausted and have to get some sleep or I won't be coherent.

<3

(Seriously, there are probably hundreds of spiders per human in my house. On one hand - yay, they eat the yucky bugs; on the other - I hope they don't get pissed off!)

Um, the point. Right. Does anyone happen to have a link to one of the tutorials showing how to get your pretty LJ layout at IJ? I've just updated (Halloween, yay!) with a fairly simple Variable Flow layout there and I'd like to copy it over here.

Thanks! ♥

Oh, also, does anyone else love tabbed broswers as much as I do? My webdesign prof. loathes them and rants about them as though they are the greatest evil ever. Obviously, it's a preference thing - I'm just curious if I'm in a minority.

This post is late in coming, but I'd like to thank lillithium. I fangirl her madly - she is one of my favorite artists, period - her work is always so evocative and passionate.

This Reversathon, she drew The Fall for me, which is my favorite H/D fanart ever. Luckily, I happened to be given her prompt for Reversathon as well (there'd been a switch in my assignment), which was juicy and inspiring and all kinds of wonderful. I already considered myself almost unbelievably lucky. Then lillithium absolutely killed me by making unbelievably gorgeous fanart for the story. I'm still so completely floored by this I can't do anything but stammer and fangirl-squeak whenever I look at it (which is often, because just wow).

Also! I would like to pimp seasidecafe, fleshdress and emeraldgreen's new crack multi-fandom RPG. I'll be playing Aziraphale to the lovely Katilara's wicked Crowley. This community is low-stress, RP optional and will be great fun, so check it out!

( personal update )

Given recent events, I was hesitant to post on the subject. As it turns out, I do have something to say.

Several years ago, I was out on a business lunch with our customer. One of the people there was this fantastic lady, G. G. was the only black person and one of very few women in management in her division of this particular extremely competetive business (you've all heard of this company). She is an amazing and inspirational woman who takes absolutely no crap whatsoever.

During the course of the lunch, she told a story about how she'd gone to lunch with her family, including her four-year-old daughter, over the weekend. Her daughter was apparently a bit restless (though knowing G. I have every confidence the child's behavior was well within acceptable parameters). However, they'd been seated near some cave-dwelling neanderthals who turned around at one point and asked them to shut the little nigger up.

I was appalled that anyone could use that word on a child. Shocked, even. I'd seen a lot of quiet racism, and heard a lot of white people saying horrible things behind the backs of people of color, but I had never imagined someone would casually do something like that in public. I said as much - the story had really opened my eyes.

G.'s response was that all black children have to get their cherry popped sometime.

I will never have to try to somehow explain to my daughter why her skin color makes her practically an animal in some people's eyes. I will never have to tell her that some people will assume she has no money, or that she's greedy, or that she likes to fight, or any of the other stupid, negative assumptions people make about other races and cultures.

My daughter is five, and she does not know the meaning of the word nigger. She has never (to my knowledge) even heard it. I will tell her, but I will wait until she can try to begin to understand.

This is my privilege as a white mother.

I know everything's exploded lately. I haven't been reading anything - I've got several fics bookmarked to come back to later on. But this one you don't want to miss.

Putting Out Fires (With Gasoline) by Fleshdress is an HP AU in a cyber-punk setting with Sirius/Snape, James/Lily, and Lucius/Regulus as the main pairings. There's tons of action and porn - really good porn of all sorts of flavors - and it's an extremely enjoyable read.

Fandom has been a Not Fun place lately, and this is one of those fics that reminded me of everything I loved about fandom to begin with.

You need to sign an age statement and join the community to read it (it doesn't seem to have been crossposted to GJ or IJ yet), but it's definitely worth it.

It's strange to see everything getting locked down, deleted, moved or canceled.

Anyway, there's no point in me making a long post about my feelings about LJ/6A. I agree completely with amanuensis1's post - she's already said everything and said it well.

I've been slowly picking away at backing up my fics to my other journals. I will keep my LJ, but its use will be limited to a very few things that I can't imagine moving like Hogwarts Elite (it just wouldn't make sense). Once all of my fic has been backed up, I will probably remove it from LJ entirely.

For right now, IJ is my preferred journal but I will mirror most everything to LJ, GJ and JF.

I am:

mentha at InsaneJournal (Please don't friend 'greenspine' there!)
greenspine at GreatestJournal
mentha at JournalFen

Getting the hang of things here.

Pretty neat.

Title: Nothing Scarlet or Grey
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Very dark themes and graphic (fully consensual) sex.
Word Count: ~13,800
Summary: Harry clings to what he can.
Note: For the very lovely and talented Aigua Nightshade (lillithium) for Reversathon 07, posted July 8, 2007. Many thanks to R. for the beta!

( Nothing Scarlet or Grey )

Continued in Part 2.

Title: Nothing Scarlet or Grey
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Very dark themes and graphic (fully consensual) sex.
Word Count: ~13,800
Summary: Harry clings to what he can.
Note: For the very lovely and talented Aigua Nightshade (lillithium) for Reversathon 2007. Many thanks to R. for the beta!

Continued from Part 1.

( Nothing Scarlet or Grey )

Title: Synchronicity (Side B)
Characters: Tom Riddle/Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17 (just smut)
Themes/kinks chosen: psychic orgasm, docking (not on the list, but yay, docking!)
Word Count: ~ 1,350
Summary: Harry should probably learn to control his unconscious mind when it comes to Tom Riddle.
Author's notes: My daily_deviant piece for June 07.

( Synchronicity (Side B) )

Title: The Changeling
Characters: Voldemort, Ginny, Draco, Harry (gen)
Rating: R for violence
Warnings: Torture
Word Count: 4,816
Summary: The Dark Lord knows how to get the most out of his people.
Notes: Enormous thanks and love go to fleshdress for listening to all my wibbling and being generally fantastic! Originally posted on riddle_gifts on LJ on May 23, 2007.

( The Changeling )

Title: Potterocalypse (It's the End of the World and I Feel Fine)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Blindfolds, Phallophilia, Crackfic, Meta, Porn
Summary: On Febuary 1st, 2007, the HP fandom was rocked by the release date for the seventh book. But how did this news affect the characters living in the Potterverse?
Notes: Dedicated to Sopdetly for coming up with the word Potterocalypse and to Mizbean for inspiring the idea of a cracky Grease 2 style setting. This was obviously not my original plan for this entry, but after the news today I couldn't resist - I hope it is still porny enough for the community! Enormous thanks and love to Lisa for a damn heroic last minute beta. My Daily Deviant entry for Feb. 2007.


( Potterocalypse (It's the End of the World and I Feel Fine)  )

Title: To Catch a Toad
Rating: R/NC-17
Word Count: approx. 3,500
Warnings: play format, purple prose, Umbridge-style torture, noncon/dubcon
Summary: Umbridge stands trial for sexual misconduct.
Notes: Written for redcandle_17 for hpvalensmut, posted here on Feb. 19, 2007. Many thanks to sopdetly for her beta, and for her brilliant Umbridge.

( It's sort of like a train wreck, only more purple. )

Title: Al Azif
Rating/Warnings: NC-17, Painful, underage (16), dark!creature sex.
Pairing(s): unrequited Snape/Voldemort, Snape/dark!Creatures.
Summary: Snape has always been fascinated by the Dark Arts.
Word Count: @ 4,500
Author's Notes: Written for lunalelle for Springsmut 2007, posted here on March 20, 2007. (Beta credits and thanks after the story.)


( Al Azif )

Title: Eden (The Naming of Things Remix)
Summary: There are some things angels and demons simply can't do.
Rating: Hard R/NC-17, Aziraphale/Crowley
Fandom: Good Omens
Notes: Remix of this lovely drabble by Melandry, posted Apr. 17, 2007. Additional notes after the story.

( Eden (The Naming of Things Remix) )

Title: Sympathy of Wolves
Fandom: Dracula (the book)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for violence
Pairings: Primarily gen, but implied Bride/Dracula, Bride/Harker, Dracula/Harker.
Word Count: about 2,550
Summary: The story of Dracula's eldest bride, her relationship with Dracula, and her feelings for Jonathan Harker.
Notes: Written for bwinter for yuletide 2006, posted Dec. 24, 2006. Based on the novel, but much of Dracula in this piece was based on the historical figure as well.

( Sympathy of Wolves )